The Many Roots of Medieval Logic: The Aristotelian and the Non-Aristotelian Traditions

The Many Roots of Medieval Logic: The Aristotelian and the Non-Aristotelian Traditions The Many Roots of Medieval Logi...

Author: John Marenbon

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The Many Roots of Medieval Logic: The Aristotelian and the Non-Aristotelian Traditions

The Many Roots of Medieval Logic: The Aristotelian and the Non-Aristotelian Traditions Special Offprint of Vivarium 45, 2-3 (2007) Edited by

John Marenbon

LEIDEN . BOSTON 2007

Originally published as Volume 45, No. 2-3 (2007) of Brill’s journal Vivarium. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978 90 04 16487 1 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints BRILL, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

Contents John Marenbon, Introduction .................................................... I. Roots, Traditions and the Multiplicity of Medieval Logic Sten Ebbesen, The Traditions of Ancient Logic-cum-Grammar in the Middle Ages—What’s the Problem? ...................................

1

6

II. Stoic Logic and Linguistics Christopher J. Martin, Denying Conditionals: Abaelard and the Failure of Boethius’ Account of the Hypothetical Syllogism .... Martin Lenz, Are Thoughts and Sentences Compositional? A Controversy between Abelard and a Pupil of Alberic on the Reconciliation of Ancient Theses on Mind and Language ....... Anne Grondeux, Res Meaning a Thing Thought: The Influence of the Ars donati ..................................................................................

23 39 59

III. Platonism in Logic and Semantics Christophe Erismann, The Logic of Being: Eriugena’s Dialectical Ontology .................................................................................... I rène R osier -C atach , Priscian on Divine Ideas and Mental Conceptions: The Discussions in the Glosulae in Priscianum, the Notae Dunelmenses, William of Champeaux and Abelard ......... Stefania Bonfiglioli and Costantino Marmo, Symbolism and Linguistic Semantics. Some Questions (and Confusions) from Late Antique Neoplatonism up to Eriugena .............................

73

89 108

IV. Aristotle, Augustine and Stoicism Mary Sirridge, “Utrum idem sint dicere et intelligere sive videre in mente”: Robert Kilwardby, Quaestiones in librum primum Sententiarum ............................................................................. Claude Panaccio, Mental Language and Tradition Encounters in Medieval Philosophy: Anselm, Albert and Ockham ................. Laurent Cesalli, Intentionality and Truth-Making: Augustine’s Influence on Burley and Wyclif ’s Propositional Semantics .......

123 139 153

V. Aristotelian Traditions in Medieval Logic Luisa Valente, Names That Can Be Said of Everything: Porphyrian Tradition and ‘Transcendental’ Terms in Twelfth-Century Logic E. Jennifer Ashworth, Metaphor and the Logicians from Aristotle to Cajetan ...................................................................................... Christophe Grellard, Scepticism, Demonstration and the Infinite Regress Argument (Nicholas of Autrecourt and John Buridan) Catarina Dutilh Novaes, Theory of Supposition vs. Theory of Fallacies in Ockham .................................................................. Egbert P. Bos, Richard Billingham’s Speculum puerorum, Some Medieval Commentaries and Aristotle ......................................

230

Bibliography ...............................................................................

244

The page numbers in the above table of contents refer to the bracketed page numbers in this volume.

168 181 198 213

v i va rium Vivarium 45 (2007) 131-135

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Introduction A common way of dividing up medieval logic, which goes back to the period, is into the logic vetus, the logica nova and the logica modernorum. The first two of these labels refer to the different items in Aristotle’s logical corpus—the group of works that came into use gradually between c. 780 and c. 1000, and the remaining works that became known in the century or so after 1110. The third is the title for those branches of logic invented by medieval thinkers, such as the theory of the properties of terms or the investigation of insolubles. This division sums up very eloquently a conception of medieval logic that is usually unquestioned. Either it is Aristotelian in its basis, or else it is—perhaps with some debts to the Aristotelian tradition—of medieval invention. But might there not be other ancient traditions behind aspects of medieval logic? Might it not have many ancient roots? The papers here set out to explore some of the avenues indicated by this question. The sections of the collection indicate the ways in which the question can be articulated. The other great tradition of logic and semantics in the ancient world besides Aristotle’s was that of the Stoics. There is no doubting its importance as a logical school, but, unlike Aristotelian logic, its transmission to the Middle Ages is unclear. Section II (papers on conditionals by Christopher Martin; on compositionality by Martin Lenz and on res meaning a thing thought by Anne Grondeux) considers the extent of possible Stoic influence. By contrast, there is no doubt that medieval thought was influenced by Platonism, but there is a large question—addressed in Section III (papers on Eriugena by Christophe Erismann, Ideas in the mind of God by Irène Rosier-Catach and symbolism in the early Middle Ages by Stefania Bonfiglioli and Costantino Marmo)—as to whether it is helpful to speak of Platonic logic. One of the main bearers of Platonic influence was Augustine, but, especially in semantics, Augustine is strongly influenced by Stoicism. How did this Augustinian approach to semantics interact with the Aristotelian model, known especially through his On Interpretation? The papers in Section IV (Mary Sirridge and Claude Panaccio on mental language, and Laurent Cesalli on the semantics of propositions) examine this question. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217678

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Introduction / Vivarium 45 (2007) 131-135

From Sections I-IV, it will already have become evident that the Aristotelian ideas combine in a whole variety of ways with these other Stoic, Platonic and Augustinian ones. Section V looks at what might be called Aristotelian traditions in medieval logic—medieval developments in logic that can indeed be traced back to Aristotle, but to aspects of Aristotle from which theories that are themselves unAristotelian are developed: the theory of transcendental terms, discussed by Luisa Valente; metaphor, treated by Jennifer Ashworth and Christophe Grellard’s examination of how sceptical arguments found in the Prior and Posterior Analytics are exploited in the fourteenth century. The final two pieces in this section—by Catarina Dutilh Novaes on fallacies and supposition, and Egbert Bos on probationes terminorum—consider to what extent branches of the logica modernorum can be thought of as distant types of Aristotelianism. *** Sten Ebbesen sets the scene, in Section I, by presenting his conception of the problem as a whole: ‘The Tradition of Ancient Logic-cum-Grammar in the Middle Ages—What’s the Problem?’, he asks in his title. Ebbesen is sceptical about the direct influence on medieval logic of ancient Stoicism. Where Stoic and medieval logical notions (for instance, Stoic lekta and medieval dicta or enuntiabilia) are close to one another, he believes that it is a case of parallel development. He also doubts whether there is anything that can properly be called ‘Neoplatonic Logic’. But he suggests that we add to the traditional terminology of ‘Aristotelian’, ‘Stoic’ and ‘Neoplatonic’, the ideas of ‘Hellenistic Standard’ and ‘Late Ancient Standard’. Hellenistic Standard is the mixture of Stoic and Aristotelian logic that was widely disseminated in the Hellenistic period. Ebbesen believes that it would be worthwhile to try to describe it, but that it has ‘scant relevance’ for medieval logic. By contrast, he argues that Late Ancient Standard logic and Late Ancient Standard grammar are both important for the Middle Ages: LAS logic is the mixture of logical ideas, often developed by Neoplatonists though not specifically Neoplatonic, that was common in late antiquity and is reflected in Boethius’s works. LAS grammar is largely but not entirely Stoic in its derivation, and it is mediated through Apollonius Dyscolus and Priscian. Ebbesen’s answer to the question he poses himself faces, therefore, in two different directions. On the one hand, he does not reject the idea that there are traditions at the basis of medieval logic other than the Aristotelian. Indeed, his argument points in the direction of saying that we should think, first and foremost, of LAS logic and grammar—composite traditions,


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containing heterogeneous elements—as giving medieval logic and semantic its roots, as multiple as these traditions themselves. This analysis fits a number of the papers that follow. Grondeux, Lenz and Ashworth illustrate the pervasiveness of LAS grammar, as do the papers in Section IV (where Augustine’s importance as a transmitter of strands in this tradition is highlighted); Valente, especially, provides an instance of LAS logic and how it is developed in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, Ebbesen wants to disappoint some of the expectations raised by the title of this collection. We should not expect, he tells us, to encounter medieval versions of Stoic logic, or that of any other ancient school apart from the Peripatetics. Is Ebbesen right? In several important ways, the papers published here seem to show that he is wrong. First, Chris Martin’s paper shows that it is possible, if in a qualified way, to talk of a medieval influence of strictly Stoic logic. Stoic logic is most sharply distinguished from Aristotle’s by being propositional, whereas Aristotelian logic is of terms. Unfortunately, ancient scholars seem to have seen these systems as competing, rather than complementary, and in late antiquity Stoic logic all but disappeared, leaving no texts that could be transmitted to the Middle Ages. In LAS logic, as represented by Boethius, although features originating from Stoic propositional reasoning remain, their meaning has been lost (cf. Speca, 2001). What Martin shows, however, is that Abelard succeeded in rediscovering the notion of propositional content and so in devising a propositional logic, on the basis of a reading of Boethius’s treatise on hypothetical syllogisms. Abelard saw, as it were, through the incomprehension of Boethius and LAS to the core of Stoic logic, hidden to them. It is not, therefore, a matter strictly speaking of parallel development, but rather of a sort of thoughtful perspicacity, a logical ability that enabled Abelard to make of the tradition more than it ostensibly offered him. Second, Christophe Erismann’s paper shows how, in a limited area, it may be justified to speak of a Platonic logic. Although Porphyry and many of the Neoplatonists who interested themselves in logic (especially Boethius, who is strikingly Porphyrian) allow their Neoplatonism to affect their logical thinking only sporadically, there was a current in the logic practised by Neoplatonists that was more genuinely Neoplatonic, and one medieval Latin thinker, John Scottus Eriugena—using especially his knowledge of Greek Christian sources, such as Maximus the Confessor—took it to its limits. True, as Erismann indicates, Eriugenian logic is always shading into metaphysics, but it begins from Aristotle’s Categories. Third, Christophe Grellard’s paper brings out the many-rootedness of medieval logic in a way that Ebbesen’s scheme does not accommodate. Aristotle

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himself was working within an already complex philosophical tradition, and some of the earlier thinkers he attacks would become foundational figures of later ancient schools. Grellard shows how philosophers like Nicholas of Autrecourt and John Buridan used arguments and counter-arguments about scepticism in Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics in their own ways. Some of these seem to parallel moves made by genuine ancient sceptical philosophers (and knowledge of Sextus Empiricus, translated but little read, cannot be ruled out). But what Grellard shows is that even just a close reading of Aristotle can lead out of the Aristotelian tradition. Although Ebbesen may be wrong in these ways, there is one, more important, central way in which he is completely right, and in the light of which even Martin’s, Erismann’s and Grellard’s powerful points need to be qualified. Ebbesen’s main point is not so much that we should look at traditions s and t rather than traditions u and v. It is that we have to be very wary about the idea of monolithic traditions at all. His view is echoed by Panaccio’s essay. Panaccio emphasizes the obvious, but often forgotten point, that traditions are a construct of historians. There were thinkers who had thoughts, and who left records of them in texts. Panaccio’s own piece, examining the ‘textual chains’ by which theories of mental language were transmitted from antiquity, gives an example of his method. Other pieces in this collection also illustrate it. It would be hard, for instance, to think of one of Irène Rosier-Catach’s topics— the use by Abelard, a twelfth-century nominalist, of the presentation by Priscian, a sixth-century grammarian who borrows heavily from the Stoics, of Plato’s theory of Ideas, as transformed (through a tradition going back to Philo Judaeus) into Ideas in the Mind of God—in terms of anything but individual texts and their multiform usages. Or again, whilst a contrast between Aristotle’s exclusion of non-assertive sentences from the realm of logic and the Stoics’ acceptance of them may set the scene for the controversy Martin Lenz describes between Abelard and a pupil of Alberic on compositionality, the reader of this analysis is quickly transported from vague ideas of traditions to the specifics of a twelfth-century intellectual encounter that is brought to life with the help of an understanding of contemporary semantics. Perhaps, then, the main title of this collection, ‘The Many Roots of Medieval Logic’ hints at a better methodology than the sub-title, which refers to the Aristotelian and the non-Aristotelian traditions. The best work in the following pages at once brings the variety of ancient logical tradition into focus and reveals the inadequacy of thinking in terms of traditions. We start to learn about the past of our subject, it tells us, when we try not to label, but look carefully at texts and their relations and try to understand the story they tell as


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a philosophical one. All that is missing here is an awareness that philosophical stories, even those about logic, unfold as part of a wider and more brutal narrative—but that is the task for another book, or a series of them. *** The papers which appear here (with the exception of Claude Panaccio’s) are based on those given at the 15th European Symposium on Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, which took place in Cambridge on 1-3 July 2004 at Trinity College, Cambridge. That conference was generously supported by the British Academy and Trinity College, Cambridge. My gratitude is due also to the many participants who, by paying for their own travel and the conference fee, enabled me to balance the budget; to the forbearance of the contributors during the long wait for news about publication of the papers, and to those speakers who agreed to publish elsewhere, so allowing for a manageably-sized volume. I am delighted that these papers are being published as a special issue of Vivarium, and I am enormously grateful to Julian Deahl, of Brill, Lodi Nauta, Editor of Vivarium, his predecessor, Onno Kneepkens and all of the editorial board, for making this possible. I owe a very special debt to Margaret Cameron for helping enormously with the unrewarding task of preparing the volume for publication. John Marenbon May 2007


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The Traditions of Ancient Logic-cum-Grammar in the Middle Ages—What’s the Problem? Sten Ebbesen University of Copenhagen

Abstract Clashes between bits of non-homogeneous theories inherited from antiquity were an important factor in the formation of medieval theories in logic and grammar, but the traditional categories of Aristotelianism, Stoicism and Neoplatonism are not quite adequate to describe the situation. Neoplatonism is almost irrelevant in logic and grammar, while there might be reasons to introduce a new category, LAS = Late Ancient Standard, with two branches: (1) logical LAS = Aristotle + Boethius, and (2) grammatical LAS = Stoics &c. Apollonius Priscian. Keywords Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Scholasticism

Medieval scientific practice to a great extent consisted in solving a problem well-known from latter-day natural science. You have got a couple of mutually independent theories, each with a field of its own, but also some overlap. How do you produce a unified theory for the combined field? Being faced with that challenge is intellectually stimulating and I, among others, believe that part of the fuel for medieval inventiveness came from the incongruity of some of their inherited ancient theories, whose incongruity in turn was due to their different origin. Thus we are faced with the task of identifying clashes between inherited theories, demonstrating how those clashes were constructively dealt with, and tracing the history of the various pieces of theory. For this we need information about our old thinkers and their works. We also need historiographical categories, and—as everybody knows—historiographical categories are in the best case too broad, in the middle case, which is not here the place © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217687

S. Ebbesen / Vivarium 45 (2007) 136-152

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of virtue, they are plain useless, and in the worst case they are definitely misleading. From time to time we must take up our standard categories for evaluation. So, the belief in the fecundity of clashes between traditions carries with it problems of its own as well as its own variants of standard problems for historical research.

How Many Different Ancient “Traditions” Do We Actually Have to Operate with? “Traditions” in philosophy are often, and for good reasons, thought of in terms of schools, the members of which share common tenets and attitudes thanks to intellectual descent from a common master. Often, members of a school of thought publicly declare their allegiance to the founder. Aristotelianism In this sense it seems unproblematic to pose an Aristotelian tradition in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in the Renaissance, yet it is a commonplace that “Aristotelianism” is a word of the type about which Aristotle might have said that it is said in many ways. In the Western Middle Ages there is one very straightforward sense in which there is an Aristotelian tradition. People simply studied Aristotle’s works, again and again, generation after generation, and usually claimed to be in essential agreement with him. Moreover, none of the Aristotelian works they studied have been lost in the meantime, so we can read what they read, check on their quotations, and easily recognize Aristotelian items in their writings. In another way the Aristotelian tradition is a very elusive entity. Usually a systematic coherence is assumed to exist between different pieces of doctrine from the same school. The medieval Aristotelian tradition hardly satisfies the criterion for being a school in that sense. If “Aristotelian tradition” is understood as a generic term comprising several specific ways of understanding Aristotle or several different ways of doing logic and linguistics each one inspired by Aristotle, but representing different interpretations of his work, we soon end up with a vaguely defined genus and an unwieldy lot of species and individuals. We are too well informed about too many Aristotelians!

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Stoicism and Hellenistic Standard “Stoicism” is a difficult historiographical category for the opposite reason. We have so little left of the writings of the Stoic theoreticians that the otherwise sensible question “Whose Stoicism? Zeno’s or Chrysippus’ or Diogenes of Babylon’s or . . .” is for the most part unanswerable, and it is standard procedure among scholars to take all the ancient reports of what Stoics say and think to be more or less accurate reports of one coherent philosophical system, all of whose essential ingredients could once be found in the oral or written teaching of Chrysippus. Only the assumption that all the pieces of information are information about one system makes it at all possible to try to reconstruct any system at all. Accepting this hypothesis amounts to swallowing a fair-sized camel, but it must be done. Then we can begin straining at the gnats, and that means doing old-fashioned Quellenforschung. We would like to take the doctrine of Augustine’s De dialectica to be Stoic in all essentials—it fills in a big lacuna in our knowledge about Stoic dialectic, and though the text was not that popular in the Middle Ages, its being Stoic would provide us with a known channel of Stoic influence on the medievals, though it only a few of them can be demonstrated to have read it.1 A couple of generations ago there seemed to be little problem in this. Karl Barwick had convincingly reconstructed some key features of Stoic doctrine of language and in an influential 1957 study he found De dialectica in accordance with the recipe. As early as 1912 B. Fischer had plausibly argued that the work reproduced doctrine that Augustine had found in Varro’s encyclopedic Disciplinæ from the late first century BC. Varro, in turn, could be relied on to rely on one or more Stoic sources.2 The serenity of this picture was disturbed by an observation made by Barwick himself, namely that De dialectica contains at least one feature of Aristotelian origin, namely a distinction between equivocals and univocals. He tried minimize the damage to his theory by assuming that Varro’s immediate source was Antiochus of Ascalon who, supposedly, had grafted a small Peripatetic branch onto a large Stoic trunk.3 In 1958, however, D. Fehling, threw doubt

1)

The work was used by Roger Bacon (who cites it in De signis and in the Compendium studii theologiae) and by Henry of Ghent: see Rosier (1995b). 2) Barwick (1957), Chapter 1; Fischer (1912). 3) Barwick (1957), 18-22; cf. Ruef (1981), 153 and Pépin (1976b), 68-69. De Rijk (1977, 82-84) denies that Augustine used a specifically Stoic source. For a “Stoic” reading of De dialectica see Pinborg (1962), 148-177.


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on whether Varro had actually been as faithful to his mainly Stoic source(s) as supposed by Barwick.4 For all that, I stubbornly continue to believe that Varro was Augustine’s main source, and that Varro’s doctrine was mainly of Stoic inspiration. But while I am convinced that Stoicism was pervasive in ordinary teaching of grammar and logic in the centuries round the birth of Christ, I must admit that in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria from the late first century AD there are Aristotelian features among the ones I know or believe to be Stoic. For instance, one finds the whole list of the ten categories, and with explicit attribution to Aristotle, though with a tell-tale Stoicising interpretation of , which, we are told, is the concept corresponding to the question an sit, i.e. whether something is (the case).5 The situation just described suggests that perhaps it might be useful to operate with not just an Aristotelian and a Stoic tradition but also with an entity that we might call Hellenistic Standard, a complex of terminology and doctrines that cannot be traced back to one great philosopher, and in which certain Stoic and certain Aristotelian ingredients are readily recognizable, but which might turn out to be more than the chimerical sum of those heterogeneous parts, and which may have had many more adherents than unadulterated Stoicism or Aristotelianism—or Epicureanism, for that matter. I am not aware of any serious attempt to describe Hellenistic Standard Logic, it might be worth a try. Neoplatonism and Late Ancient Standard If we turn our attention to the last centuries of Antiquity, the main logic texts are commentaries on the Organon composed between ca. 250 and 600. Habitually, the authors of those commentaries are classified as Neoplatonists, though it is generally recognized that their Platonism was rather subdued when they expounded Aristotle. The commentators have enough in common that we may reasonably call their logic Late Ancient Standard logic (and no competing sort of logic from the period is known). By contrast, it makes little sense to speak of a “Neoplatonic Logic”.6 Very few core ideas are definitely Neoplatonic, and still fewer are both decidedly Neoplatonic and relevant to logic, even taking ‘logic’ in a very wide sense.

4) 5) 6)

Fehling (1958). Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 3.6.23-24. In spite of some brilliant papers on the topic by A.C. Lloyd, notably Lloyd (1956).

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One pervasive idea in Neoplatonism is that a millet seed with its enormous potential is ever so much better than a finished plant. This should be remembered when we look at an apparent convergence between Stoicism and Platonism: both end in their ontological analysis with a non-descript this or something or there is or one. But the Stoic this is the bare bones of a living being, the Neoplatonist one is the beast itself. One variant of the Neoplatonist story about the millet seed is the story about the way from higher reality to language and back again. When Proclus—in non-Aristotelian contexts— speaks about symbols, it is easy to see that what he says is very un-Aristotelian, and we can happily apply the label Neo-Platonic.7 But when Boethius speaks about signification in his second commentary on the Perihermeneias, all we can say is: some of the ideas involved must have originated in a non-Aristotelian context of the sort we call Neo-Platonic.8 And when the same Boethius in his commentary on chapter 1 of the Categories presents what is essentially Porphyry’s account of equivocals, univocals and denominatives, including the mention of the last two items of old Speusippus’ system, multivocals, that is, and diversivocals—and including the subdivision of equivocals into equivocals by chance and by purpose as well as a discussion of the possible inclusion of metaphor under equivocation— when Boethius does all that, he is indisputably transmitting the doctrine of a first-rank Neoplatonist, namely Porphyry—but is the doctrine in question Neoplatonic in any interesting sense? Not as far as I can see, though a small Platonic twist may be detected here or there. For all we know, Porphyry himself could have taken over most of his scholium from Alexander of Aphrodisias, who taught Peripateticism for a living in the years round AD 200, and at least one ingredient, the Speusippean classification, is recorded to have been already in the work of the older Peripatetic Boethos of Sidon (probably late 1st c. BC).9 Or what about the notion of two impositions of names? The medievals learned it from Boethius, and his source was Porphyry.10 But it is hard to see

7) Higher reality to language and back again: see Ebbesen (1987). For Proclus on symbols, see Bonfiglioli and Marmo’s chapter in this volume. 8) For the passage in question (Boethius 1880, 20-23) see Magee (1989), 76ff., and the reviews of this book by Ebbesen (1991) and by Mann (1993). 9) Boethius (1847), 163D-168D; Porphyry, Commentary on the Categories, CAG 4.1, 65-70. For Boethos, see Simplicius, Cat., CAG 8: 38.19ff. 10) Boethius (1847), 159A-C; Porphyry, Cat., CAG 4.1: 57-58. More discussion of Porphyry’s theory of imposition in Ebbesen (1981).


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anything particularly Neoplatonic about the double imposition, though it is unknown from any source earlier than Porphyry. To my mind, the most probable place of origin is Stoicism. The Stoics had developed the Platonic notion of imposition of names, and in their philosophy there was good reason to distinguish between a primary imposition of names on ordinary things and a secondary imposition of names that group words by function.11 It is not really important whether you believe me on this or not, because we are dealing with a piece of theory that, however interesting it may be, is fairly neutral when it comes to Stoicism versus Neoplatonism. We can safely put the two impositions down as an item of Late Ancient Standard rather than as Neoplatonic. A final example. Boethius’ introduction to categorical syllogisms depends on a work by Porphyry,12 whose own sources are difficult to track down. Again, it is hard to locate anything specifically Neo-Platonic in the work. We do not have much material for comparison, but Boethius and Porphyry may well have followed the late ancient mainstream tradition in syllogistic, itself quite possibly a continuation of one branch—a Peripatetically oriented one—of Hellenistic Standard. Boethius’ work on hypothetical syllogisms was long a major source of wonder. Nothing was like it. But recently Susanne Bobzien13 discovered that a brief Greek text printed by Waiz in the preface to his edition of the Organon offers a rather close parallel to one part, at least, of the enigmatic Boethian work. The Greek text cannot be dated, but chances are that it reflects a Late Ancient Standard treatment of the matter that we had so far only heard about from Boethius. So, to the medievals Boethius was a rich source for Late Ancient Standard logic, not for Neoplatonic logic, because there never was such a thing. Neither was there ever a Neoplatonic tradition in grammar. The only ancient school ever to have a grammar of its own was the Stoics, and important features of their system had been absorbed into Apollonian-Priscianic grammar without being thoroughly harmonized with either Aristotelian or (Neo)platonic doctrine, both of which have also left traces in Priscian, who

11)

Ebbesen (2005a). Boethius’ Introductio in syllogismos categoricos exists in two variants, the second one incomplete. The passage that reveals the source occurs in book II of the first version (“De syllogismo categorico”), PL 64: 813C, here quoted from a forthcoming edition by Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist, University of Gothenburg: “secunda uero figura habet sub se quattuor modos, tertia uero auctore Aristotele sex. Addunt etiam alii unum, sicut ipse Porphyrius superiores scilicet sequens”. 13) Bobzien (2002). 12)

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was to be the only ancient grammarian with any great impact on scholastic linguistic thought—Donatus, though used in every cathedral school, was to jejune to offer much inspiration except for situations in which he disagreed with Priscian. As Boethius’ logical writings are better classified under Late Ancient Standard than under a school name, so it is less misleading to think of Priscian as a representative of Late Ancient Standard grammar than as a representative of some philosophical school. Vaguely Neoplatonic hierarchical approaches to problems were known to the medievals from a large number of ancient non-logical and non-grammarial sources, and many schoolmen made lavish use of the notion of worthiness: in any set of things, including very abstract ones, some things are worthier or nobler—digniores or nobiliores—than others. According to Ros(celin Junior, early 12th c.), the category of substance is worthier than the remaining ones,14 and according to Anonymus Aurelianensis II (second half of 12th c.), the art of demonstration is worthier than the other parts of logic.15 This was still true to a scholar who worked a century later (1270s), and a near-contemporary of his in very Platonist-sounding words declared that among the various sorts of multiplicity that cause the Aristotelian fallacies in speech, equivocation most genuinely deserves the name because it “takes part in the name in a better and nobler way” than the remaining five.16 The remarkable thing is that such arguments from dignity and nobility are absent from Boethius’ commentaries. True, he does explain that substance is naturally prior to the accidental categories, but this is good Aristotelian termi-

14)

Ros, Glossulae Categoriarum, ms. Archivio Capitolare della Basilica Ambrosiana, M2: 3vA, on Arist., Cat. 5 (transcribed by Iwakuma, slightly modified by me) “Primitus de substantia agit—namely Aristotle—eo videlicet quod substantia omnium aliorum praedicamentorum rerum subsistamentum sit, dignius vero est quod {fort. quia cod.} substentat eo quod substentatur. Sed etiam praedicamentum dignius ceteris est eo quod unumquodque vocabulum huius praedicamenti aliquam existentiam continere [habere] habeat per appellationem et nullum de aliis hoc habeat. Dignius etiam dicitur praedicamentum hoc modo significandi, quia vocabula istius praedicamenti non denotant res suas tanquam assistentes, sed aliorum vocabulorum praedicamentorum vocabula res suas tanquam in subiecto. Sessio enim eundem intellectum facit quem sedens, sic et alia. Et ita dignius est hoc praedicamentum ceteris. Et ideo de hoc primitus [quam] utpote de digniori.” (I propose to call the author Roscellin Junior to distinguish him from his more famous predecessor). Very similar expressions occur in other 12th-c. commentaries on this passage. 15) Ebbesen (1976), 37. 16) Anonymus C, in Incerti auctores (1977), qu. 809: Anonymus SF, in Incerti auctores (1977), Quaest. SE, qu. 50.


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nology, he does not employ value-terms,17 and so he cannot be held responsible for the “Neoplatonic” reliance on arguments a dignitate evidenced from the very early days of Western scholasticism. In later scholasticism Aristotle himself may have contributed to the popularity of arguments from nobility. When his Metaphysics began to be commonly read in the 13th c. it may have reinforced an already existing tendency because in several passages the translations had dignior, nobilior, nobilissimus for , , .18 Some authors from the 1270s simply identify natural priority with nobility.19 While such hierarchical thinking owed much of its popularity to ancient (Neo)Platonists, as a “tradition” or as symptom of a tradition it is too diffuse to be of much use. And, to be fair to the medieval logicians and grammarians, for the most part the use they made of arguments a digniori et nobiliori was rather innocuous, since they were mainly applied to ultimately inconsequential matters such as the right order of presentation of items. The two authors from the 1270s whose use of such arguments was referred to above, are adamant that standing higher or lower in terms of value is irrelevant to whether two things are species of the same genus and, consequently, whether a common designation applies to them univocally or equivocally. They do not want to get entangled in the theologians’ confusion of ordinary prius—posterius analogy with nobilius—vilius analogy. Conclusions about Ancient Traditions However one divides Hellenistic logic into schools or traditions, virtually nothing from that period exercised a direct influence on the Middle Ages. Small pieces of theory that might perhaps best be assigned to Hellenistic Standard were known from Cicero (notably from his Topics), and little else. Broadly speaking, ideas of Hellenistic origin were accessible to the medievals only as absorbed into Late Ancient Standard. There is an important difference, however, between logic and grammar, between Boethius and Priscian. While nobody doubts that fragments of Stoic lore float around in Boethius’ works, they certainly are not dominant, and moreover it is often very hard to certify the Stoic origin of a suspected fragment. By contrast, in Priscian Stoic ingredients are both obvious and more dominating.

17)

Boethius (1847), 182A. See indices in the Aristoteles Latinus editions. 19) Anonymus C, in Incerti auctores (1977), qu. 809. Anonymus SF, in Incerti auctores (1977), Quaest. SE, qu. 57. 18)

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General Neoplatonic ideas, not specifically oriented towards logic or grammar, were transmitted to the medievals by any number of sources—Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius . . .—but because of their ubiquity and lack of specifically logico-grammatical content it is hard to pinpoint a “Neoplatonic tradition” in the field under investigation. At least in early scholasticism, the only two both important and recognizable competing “ancient traditions” are: (1) the Aristotle-based logical one represented by Boethius and Aristotle himself, (2) the Apollonio-Priscianic grammatical tradition with its strong Stoic traits. Parallel Developments Since the medievals possessed Aristotle’s logic, no problem is caused by the occurrence in their works of ideas that look Aristotelian. We do, however, frequently have a problem with ideas that look Stoic. If they cannot be traced back to Priscian, we are often at a loss to explain how they could possibly have been transmitted through the centuries. An egregious example is that of the medieval dictum or enuntiabile. The concept is there from early in the 12th century, at least,20 and it has strong similarities to the Stoic , the incorporeal quasi-thing which is the interface between sign, thought and genuine, corporeal things. We even find enunciables listed with such items as time, place and the void as examples of quasi-things—just as the Stoics are known to have listed sayables, time, place and the void as incorporeal somethings.21 Much energy has been spent on finding the ways of transmission of the notion of from the Stoa to the 12th century, but no convincing route has been found. The traces of the in Seneca’s Letters and Augustine’s De dialectica cannot explain what happened in the twelfth century, nor are those ancient authors referred to on this matter. I think we must admit that the similarity of the dictum or enuntiabile to the is due to parallel development: similar conditions produce similar results. The concept of parallel developement is one I have borrowed from evolutionary biology. An American and a European bird may have very similar properties while being genetically worlds apart, similar environmental challenges having been met with similar responses.

20)

The fundamental study is Nuchelmans (1973). Among several later studies I may mention Iwakuma (1997) and Kneepkens (1997). 21) See Ebbesen (2004), 113.


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If this is accepted we must ask ourselves what similarities in the initial conditions produced similar effects in the two cases. I would point to two factors: First, both the Stoics and the medievals thought in terms of the pair signa— significata, also known as signa—res, the Stoics inspired, no doubt, by both Plato and Aristotle, and the medievals by both Aristotle and the Stoics. The fundamentality of this pair had been stressed by the Stoics and that part of their doctrine was available to the medievals in several sources. Second, both Stoics and medievals were occupied with keeping their ontologies tidy. The Stoic system appears to have been fairly simple: there are genuine existing things, all bodily; there are secondary incorporeal things such as happenings which, though caused by bodies, cannot be eliminated from our analysis of reality; and finally there are eliminable mental constructs such as Platonic or Aristotelian forms. The doctrine of was, not least, designed to keep the ontology tidy. The medievals were much more friendly towards incorporeals, but they too wanted to keep their ontology tidy, and in the twelfth century, if no before, people became acutely aware of the fact that philosophy operates and needs to operate with items that have no place in the Aristotelian system of categories. There was, of course, an old worry about whether the categories are at all relevant to God. But now it also became obvious that other items must be exempted from categorial status—enunciables were just one such item, along with ens and aliquid, among others.22 In short, the picture, as I see it is this: the Stoics had left a tradition for worrying about the ontological status of things that are neither bodies nor spiritual doublegangers of bodies, but about which we seem to be speaking all the time. They also had left a tradition for thinking in terms of signs and significata. It was not strange, then, that twelfth-century thinkers should start to theorize about “that which I state when I make a statement”. They were in need of a concept to do the job of a , there was an empty space, as it were, in their theories waiting to be filled in. To use the language of evolutionary biology, we might say that a theory with a -like ingredient would be more likely to survive in the struggle with opposing theories than one without such an ingredient—in fact, the twelfth century was characterized by ferocious competition between the masters who taught philosophy.

22)

Cf. S. Ebbesen, (2005b), and L. Valente’s contribution to the present collection.

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The Importance for Medieval Developments of Clashes between Non-homogeneous Parts of Their Inherited Intellectual Baggage I shall now discuss a couple of cases in which combinations of and clashes between non-homogeneous parts of the inherited intellectual baggage seem to have spurred medieval theoretical inventiveness—though of course not always with tenable results. First Example: Transitivity The Stoics were, as far as we can see, the first to elaborate a reasonably complex theory of what makes a sentence complete and congruent. They distinguished between, on the one hand, one-place predicates such as ‘walking’ or ‘snoring’ that only require a subject to produce a complete sentence, and, on the other hand, such two-place predicates as “loving” or “beating” that also require an object. “The man is walking” would be a complete sentence describing some thing with some property in a certain state, i.e. a thing falling under the three first Stoic categories something—of some quality—in some state. “The man is beating his dog” would be a complete sentence describing a thing with some property in a certain state relatively to something’, i.e. a thing falling under all four Stoic categories, the last of which was in some state relatively to something. In Priscian, and so to the medievals,23 “to beat” is a transitive verb, and the notion of transition ( ) is also found in Priscian’s main source of inspiration, Apollonius Dyscolus. There is no evidence for it before then, but there is good reason to think it is a Stoic one. The basic idea is clear enough: such verbs describe happenings which originate in the subject person and pass on to the object person. As Irène Rosier-Catach has stressed on numerous occasions, in about the second quarter of the thirteenth century, Latin grammar was massively invaded by the terminology of motion from Aristotle’s Physics. Since the metaphor of transition is drawn from motion, transitivity also began to be described in terms derived from the Physics. And once you are in the world of the Physics you are in the world of the four Aristotelian causes. An example of ingenious grafting of Aristotelian branches on a Stoic trunk occurs in a 13th-century grammatical analysis of the phrase legendum est. This is a complete sentence, but difficult to analyze if you do not

23)

On Priscian as the medievals’ source for the notion of transitivity, see Kneepkens (1995), 245.


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possess the concept of a monovalent predicator. Legendum was thought to be an accusative, hence a nominative, such as dignum or debitum must be understood. But then the construction must be transitive, and legendum must be the terminus or finis of the transit. What sort of end? A final cause, of course!— Neckbreaking, but inventive!24 Second Example: What Is a “vox”? Aristotle, in Categories 6, 4b23, uses / oratio to exemplify discrete quantity and explains (4b33-35) that doing so is justified because / oratio is measured by long and short syllables. At the very beginning of his Institutiones grammaticae (1.1.1) Priscian—following a Stoic materialist understanding of vox—claims that vox is air that has been made to oscillate (aer ictus), and the very same claim occurs at the beginning of Donatus’ Ars maior. Since an oratio must be a vox, and air must be a substance (in Aristotelian terms), medieval scholars soon spotted a problem of how to reconcile the two authorities. I will not go into details; suffice it to say that texts from the early 12th century, presumably from the surroundings of William of Champeaux, suggest that the solution may be that the two ancient authors viewed vox from two different points of view: Priscian was thinking of the material substrate of linguistic items, chunks of oscillating air, we might say. Aristotle was thinking of the tenores, alias accentus, suprasegmental phonemic ingredients that differentiate such chunks of air from similar chunks and make them identifiable to a listener as probably carrying a message from a fellow human being. This is breathtaking! Via puzzling about a disagreement between two authorities early 12th-century men took great strides on the way to a reasonable ontology of words.25 Third Example: Substance, Quality and “ res” According to Donatus a noun signifies some body or thing in a common or in a private way.26 The thing in case must be incorporeal for the disjunction to

24)

Iohannes(?), Sicut dicit Remigius S13 (Legendum est musas), ms Paris BNF lat. 16618: 76rA.Text in Rosier-Catach and Ebbesen (2004). 25) I gratefully acknowledge having had access to unpublished work by Margaret Cameron (Hunter College, CUNY), who has gathered relevant sources. For the kind of problem involved in this discussion, see Ebbesen (2003b). 26) Donatus, Ars maior II.2, ed. Holz 1981: 604 : “Nomen est pars orationis cum casu corpus aut rem proprie communiterque significans”.

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make sense, and though this definition may not have been the “official” Stoic definition of the noun, it relies on Stoic ontology which comprises first-class beings called bodies and second-class incorporeal quasi-beings called happenings, , not very happily translated as res by Latin grammarians. According to Priscian, a noun is a part of speech which distributes to each of its underlying bodies or res a common or a private quality.27 Again this is nowhere attested as a Stoic definition, whereas several sources claim that the Stoics did not treat common and proper names as one part of speeech. Yet, it reeks of Stoicism. Not only do we find the division of things into bodies and happenings, we also find the Stoic pair of common and private qualities, and on top of all the definition is etymologizing in a totally Stoic manner: a noun, an , , distributes, a quality.28 The same basic idea is expressed in the short Priscianic formula most often used by the medievals: a noun signifies a substance and a quality.29 The substance is not an Aristotelian one but a Stoic ‘something’ such as can be signified by means of the demonstrative ‘this’ or the article ‘the’, which contains no information about what sort of thing the speaker is pointing at. A noun is more informative, signifying something of some sort, a , a quale or quale quid—which of course is reminiscent of Aristotle’s remark about secondary substance in Categories 5.3b15-16, and here as there quality has to be interpreted as ‘property’ in general. So, from the ancient definitions of the noun the medievals had access to some fundamental un-Aristotelian features of Stoic ontology and semantics. They did not, however, receive it with too much explanation, so there was room for interpretation, including complete misunderstanding. John Scottus Eriugena, seeing that qualitas must have a wider sense than the category of quality, but failing to recognize the radical departure from the Aristotelian lore of categories, takes the word to stand for all nine sorts of accident.30 27)

Priscian, Inst. 2.5.22, GL 2: 56-57: “Nomen est pars orationis quae unicuique subiectorum corporum seu rerum communem vel propriam qualitatem distribuit”. See parallel Greek texts in Scheider 1910, Grammatici Graeci II.3: 38. 28) Possibly inspired by Plato, Cratylus 430-431 where is used about assigning names, , to things. Notice that subiectis = seems to introduce the Stoic category of . 29) Priscian, Inst. 2.4.18, GL 2: 55 “Proprium est nominis substantiam et qualitatem significare”. In the Middle Ages usually quoted with cum qualitate substituted for et qualitatem. 30) Eriugena, in his glosses on Priscian, ed. Luhtala 2000a: 158 “Sciendumque quod in hoc loco Priscianus qualitatem posuit pro omnibus accidentibus.” Cf. Anon. Paris lat. 7505, Luhtala (2000a), 170.


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Peter Helias presents three main interpretations of the claim that a noun signifies a substance with a quality:31 (1) A Porretanean interpretation. Substance is id quod, quality id quo. (2) An interpretation that in the main is that of William of Conches. The definition is only valid for the model case of nouns signifying real substances, and they signify a substance in such a way that they delimit a common or private quality around it—Sed que significant substantiam ita eam significant quod qualitatem circa eam terminant vel communem [. . .] vel propriam—. Notice the tacit reference to Categories 5.3b20 genus autem et species circa substantiam qualitatem determinant. This view Aristotelizes the definition as much as possible, but at the same time introduces the non-Aristotelian notion of such private qualities as Plato’s Platonicity. The grammarians had kept this Stoic notion alive, well helped by the fact that the basic analysis of things as somethings-with-a-quality was also acceptable to ancient Platonists, some of whom could also accept ideas of individuals and most or all of whom could at least accept individual qualities understood as bundles of properties, each bundle uniquely identifying one individual. In fact, when mentioning Platonicity, Peter Helias refers to Boethius on the Perihermeneias.32 Incidentally, holders of the second opinion also proposed that, strictly speaking, a substantive noun signifies only the relevant quality, whereas it names the substances that bear that quality. This is a good example of constructive thinking about a difficult authoritative text. (3) The third opinion—traceable back to Thierry of Chartres—also takes “substance” to be Aristotelian substance, though strictly speaking only prototypical nouns signify substance. The quality in case is taken to be the grammatical quality of signifying in a common or a private way.33 The third opinion has erased virtually all traces of Stoicism, but not the two first. A watered-down variant of the Porretanean position became widely 31) Peter Helias (1993), 189ff. Cf. De Rijk’s treatment of the passage in (1962, 1967), II.1, 229-234. 32) Peter Helias (1993), 191. The reference is to Boethius (1880), 137. Cf. the corresponding text of William of Conches in Fredborg (1981), 30-31 and De Rijk (1962, 1967), II.1, 223. 33) Peter Helias (1993), 194. Same opinion in Anon. Comm. Prisc., ms Wien, ÔNB, lat. 2486, quoted (1962, 1967), II.1, 242. For Thierry, see the quotation from CIMAGL 21 below.

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accepted in the late 12th c., and is for instance expressed by another commentator on Priscian who says that homo signifies a quality, namely humanity, as adiacens, which it apposes to the supposit (“subject” in later terminology) when it, homo, that is, stands in appositum-position (“predicate position” in modern parlance).34 Here a substantial form is as neatly separated from its bearer as are accidental forms, and this is used to explain predication in quid along the same lines as accidental predication. The same author, and several others, including a commentator on the Categories, also take the grammarians’ substance to be suppositum locutioni, that about which one speaks.35 This is not the same as retrieving the genuinely Stoic notion of a , a thing that we have mentally stripped of all characteristics except being there, but wouldn’t someone get the idea? Another twelfth-century view was that the noun’s signifying substance and quality means that it signifies an essentia and some property “For”, one source says, “Priscian does not use “substance” in the same sense as does Boethius. Priscian calls any essentia a substance”.36 Whatever exactly such a 12th-century essentia is, it is something which transcends the Aristotelian categories and is not really at home in Aristotle’s philosophical castle. The late thirteenth century was in many ways the climax of Aristotelianism at the universities, but if we look at what modist grammarians did with the definition of the noun, we find something that is much rather Stoic than Aristotelian. According to Martin of Dacia the essential general mode of signifying of the noun is that of signifying per modum habitus et quietis et per modum determinatae apprehensionis. This is a composite mode, in which the modus habitus et quietis has the role of matter and the modus determinatae apprehensionis has the role of form. And this, he explains, is what the ancients used to express in the formula “every nouns signifies a substance with a quality”, which must be understood “modally”, he adds, so that it means per modum substantiae plus per modum qualitatis. In other words, he interprets the formula as

34) Glosa “Promisimus”, ed. in Fredborg (1999), 149: “‘Homo’ autem significat qualitatem ut adiacentem, sc. humanitatem, et eam supposito apponit quando est in apposito, ut ‘Socrates est homo’.” My punctuation. 35) Glosa “Promisimus”, ed. in Fredborg (1999), 149: “que substantiam significant id est suppositum locutioni”. Anon. D’Orvillensis, Cat., ed. Ebbesen (1999), 274. Cf. Anon., Tractatus glosarum Prisciani, ed. Fredborg 1977: 43 “Aliter enim dicit magister Thedricus: significat substantiam et qualitatem i.e. suppositum de quo loquimur communiter vel proprie ita quod conveniat uni vel pluribus.” 36) Anon., Comm. Prisc., ms Wien, ÔNB, lat. 2486, quoted in De Rijk (1962, 1967), II.1, 241.


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claiming that a noun signifies in such a way as to suit a prototype case in which its significate may be analysed as something stable grasped in a determinate way.37 We are very close to the Stoics here! The same may be said about the way other modist authors define the noun—Thomas of Erfurt and Michael of Marbais do not disagree significantly from Martin on this issue, and Radulphus Brito comes even closer to the Stoics by saying that the noun signifies per modum essentiae determinatae, adding that the underlying mode of being is esse formale in quolibet ente—be it extramental or mental, privative or positive.38 A very complicated case of clash between Stoic and non-Stoic terminology regards the , that we have already met in the description of a noun as a word that signifies a body or a . Elsewhere in this volume Anne Grondeux discusses what the Latins did with the res they got for a , so I can restrict myself to pointing to some long-term developments. In the definitions of the noun the Latins got a res that must be incorporeal. In Priscian Minor they also learned that infinitives signify the very res that the verb contains, for to run is running, to write is writing, and to read is reading: “significat autem infinitum ipsam rem quam continet verbum: currere enim est cursus et scribere scriptura et legere lectio”.39 If the medievals had not understood too well what type of incorporeals must be meant by res in the definitions of the noun, this passage could help them. The res verbi became a well-established notion of medieval grammar, and as was clear from the Priscianic passage it must in itself be above the noun/ verb distinction. Within a theory of predication that was, or at least pretended to be Aristotelian, John Pagus and some other 13th-c. writers employed the un-Aristotelian res verbi to explain how ampliation and restriction works.40 Interesting as this may be, probably the most interesting result of having such un-Aristotelian res around resulted from its marriage with the Avicennian common nature. The res that words signify according to late-13th.-c. modists are neither Aristotelian nor Stoic nor, I think, Avicennian.41 But their struggle with the conflicting

37)

Martin of Dacia (1961), 10-11 Thomas of Erfurt (1972), 154; Michael of Marbasio, Summa (1995), 19-20; Radulphus Brito (1980) 192-193. 39) Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae 18.4.43, GL 3, 226. My punctuation. 40) Ebbesen and Rosier-Catach (2000), 88-91. 41) For the role of Avicenna’s common nature, see Pinborg (1967), 44-45. 38)

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notions of substance, quality and res in their sources, had left the medievals with highly abstract notions of res, liberated from the embrace of tangible three-dimensional objects, and ready for the link-up with common natures.

Conclusions I hope to have made plausible what many scholars believe anyhow, namely that the clashes between bits of non-homogeneous theories inherited from antiquity were, indeed, an important factor in the formation of medieval theories. And while not rejecting the traditional classifications into Aristotelian, Stoic and Neoplatonic, I have given some reasons for being careful, suggesting that we might need at least two new categories: Hellenistic Standard and LAS = Late Ancient Standard, the first of which is of scant relevance for the Middle Ages, while the latter cleaves into two: logical LAS = Aristotle + Boethius, and grammatical LAS = Stoics & c. Apollonius Priscian. Neoplatonism is a concept to be invoked only on rare occasions in the history of logic and grammar.


www.brill.nl/viv

Denying Conditionals: Abaelard and the Failure of Boethius’ Account of the Hypothetical Syllogism Christopher J. Martin Auckland University

Abstract Boethius’ treatise De Hypotheticis Syllogismis provided twelfth-century philosophers with an introduction to the logic of conditional and disjunctive sentences but this work is the only part of the logica vetus which is no longer studied in the twelfth century. In this paper I investigate why interest in Boethius acount of hypothetical syllogisms fell off so quickly. I argue that Boethius’ account of compound sentences is not an account of propositions and once a proper notion of propositionality is available the argument forms accepted by Boethius are seen to be incoherent. It was Peter Abaelard who first understood the nature of propositionality and propositional connectives and used this to criticise Boethius’ claims in De Hypothetics Syllogismis. In place Boethius’ confusion Abaelard offered a simple and correct account of the hypothetical syllogism. Keywords Boethius, Abaelard, hypothetical syllogism, negation, conditional

The statues promulgated in 12521 and 12552 to regularise teaching in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris show that logic, as it should, had a central place in the training in Arts. Students were required according to the statute of 1255 to work their way through: ‘the old logic, that is, the book of Porphyry, the Predicaments, the Perihermenias, and the De Divisione and Topics by Boethius excluding the fourth book’.3 The old logic according to the Parisian 1)

Denifle (1889-1897), I, n. 201. Denifle (1889-1897), I, n. 246. 3) Denifle (1889-1897), I, n. 246: ‘Veterem logicam, videlicet librum Porfirii, predicamentorum, periermenias, divisionum et thopicorum Boecii, excepto quarto . . .’ Lectures on this material lasted for two terms beginning on the 1st of October, the Feast Saint Remigius, and ending on the Feast of the Annunciaiton, March 25th. 2)

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217696

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C. J. Martin / Vivarium 45 (2007) 153-168

masters thus consisted of works already available at the beginning of the twelfth century with one very notable exception: Boethius’ De Hypotheticis Syllogismis (DHS) is nowhere to be found in the curriculum.4 Written a century and half before the statues were drawn up, both the Dialectica of Garlandus Compotista and that of Peter Abaelard are divided into treatises corresponding to the then accepted canon of logical works. In each of them the hypothetical syllogism receives a very extensive treatment: one third of the whole in Garland’s case and about a fifth of what remains of Abaelard’s book are taken up with its treatment. For Abaelard, furthermore, the discussion of the topics is inseparable from that of the hypothetical syllogism since the topics provide the conditional propositions to be used in such arguments. The treatment of these two together takes up 350 of the 550 or so pages which survive of Abaelard’s Dialectica. The present paper attempts to address the question of why interest in Boethius’ book and in the hypothetical syllogism in general did not survive into the thirteenth century. The answer, I think, lies at least in part in the incompatible accounts of what constitutes the opposite of a given conditional found by twelfth century logicians in the material which they inherited from antiquity.

Boethius In introducing his study of the hypothetical syllogism Boethius complains that the subject has been discussed only briefly by a few Greek writers and not at all in Latin.5 There is no reason, I think, to doubt that he is accurately reporting the information available to him. Of the Greeks he mentions only Theophrastus and Eudemus and he shows no knowledge at all of Stoic discussions of hypothetical syllogisms.6 Boethius goes on, on the other hand, to 4) The earliest reference to the logica vetus is in the statute of 1215 (Chartularium n. 20): ‘. . . legant libros Aristotelis de dialectica tam de veteri quam de nova in scolis ordinarie et non ad cursum’. However, no account is given there of the works included in it. 5) Boethius, De Hypotheticis Syllogismis (DHS) 1.1.3 (Boethius, 1969): ‘Quod igitur apud scriptores quidem Graecos perquam rarissimos strictim atque confuse, apud Latinos uero nullos repperi, id tuae scientiae dedicatum noster etsi diuturnus, coepti tamen efficax labor excoluit.’ 6) DHS 1.1.3: ‘. . . de hypotheticis syllogismis saepe quaerebas, in quibus nihil est ab Aristotele conscriptum. Theophrastus uero, uir omnis doctrinae capax, rerum tantum summas exsequitur; Eudemus latiorem docendi graditur uiam, sed ita ut ueluti quaedam seminaria sparsisse, nullum tamen frugis uideatur extulisse prouentum.’ His discussion of the Stoic indemonstrables in his commentary on Cicero’s Topica, In Ciceronis Topica, is based entirely on the information given by Cicero. See Martin (1991), 277-301.


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characterise his own work as an elucidation and development of what has been already discussed by his predecessors.7 The fact that he had only a little to go on and perhaps drew on different sources may well explain some of the peculiarities of this development.8 I have argued elsewhere that although Boethius certainly provides a set of inference rules for conditional and disjunctive propositions in DHS and so a logic for at least some such propositions, he does not provide us with a propositional logic, or even a fragment of a logic, as we understand it today.9 This is because he does not possess our concept of propositional content and so does not understand propositional form and propositional operations as we do. I will not argue the point again here but an example of the difference is that for us any uniform substitution instance of the schema ‘if p, then q, p; therefore q’ is a valid argument no matter how complicated the propositional contents we might substitute for ‘p’ and ‘q ’. For Boethius, on the other hand, modus ponens has to be defined separately for each acceptable variation of the major premiss. He does, it is true, allow unlimited substitution but the substitution is of general terms for the term variables which occur in each of his argument schemata. Boethius, indeed, attempts to calculate just how many different forms of conditional proposition there are. He distinguishes simple conditionals with a categorical antecedent and consequent from composite conditionals in which either the antecedent, or the consequent, or both is a simple conditional. In addition he designates certain pairs of simple conditionals as ‘mediate’ conditional propositions. These pairs are of three different kinds. In the first the consequent of the first conditional and the antecedent of the second are the same, for example, ‘si est a, est b, si est b, est c’.10 In the second the antecedent of the second conditional is the negation of the antecedent of the first. In the third the consequent of the second is the negation of the consequent of the first. 7) DHS 1.1.4: ‘Nos igitur, quantum ingenii uiribus et amicitiae tuae studio sufficimus, quae ab illis uel dicta breuiter uel funditus omissa sunt, elucidanda diligenter et subtiliter persequenda suscepimus . . .’ 8) Susanne Bobzien discusses a Greek scholium to the Prior Analytics that contains an account of various kinds of hypothetical syllogism in which she claims to find close parallels with DHS. The scholium distinguishes (1) syllogisms with a simple conditional and a categorical as premisses, (2) syllogisms with a simple disjunction and a categorical as premisses, (3) syllogisms with two conditional premisses, i.e. wholly hypothetical syllogisms, though they are not so named in the text. Syllogisms of type (3) are divided further into three figures corresponding to Boethius’ figures for syllogisms with a ‘mediate’ conditional as their major premiss. See Bobzien (2002, 286-300). 9) Martin (1991). 10) DHS 2.9.1.

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These are all the kinds of conditional proposition that Boethius recognises. His calculation is complicated by the two qualities and the five modalities that he allows to simple categoricals,11 but in the end he arrives at the answer that there are 42,100 different kinds of conditional.12 A modern logician might make various distinctions and count in various ways but, if he counted as Boethius does, he would have to allow that there are a countably infinite number of kinds of conditional since there are no logical limits to the complexity of propositional contents which may be the arguments of propostional functions. Boethius tells us that his result would have been much larger if he had also taken the quantity of the component categoricals into account.13 He does not do this he says because conditionals are generally stated indefinitely. For example, ‘si est a, est b’, that is, ‘if something’s an a, then it’s a b’, or ‘if there’s an a, there’s b’, depending on whether or not the antecedent and consequent hold of the same subject. A conditional according to Boethius is thus distinguished from the corresponding categorical claim. Using an example from Cicero which will later cause problems, he notes that when we say: ‘if someone is pregnant, then she has slept with a man’ we are not then saying that beingpregnant is having-slept-with-a-man, but rather it is only proposed that pregnancy can never occur without sleeping with a man.14

11)

DHS 1.6.5-1.7.5. Categorical propositions are either affirmative or negative. They may in addition be modalised in some way. Boethius distinguishes three modes of necessity for each of which there is the corresponding mode of possiblitly. (1) the necessity that a proposition has in virtue of being true, ‘necesse est Sortes sedere, dum sedet’; (2) what we might call the necessity of natural dependence, ‘necesse est hominem habere cordum est atque vivit’; (3) unconditional, ’universal and proper, necessity, ‘necesse est Deum esse immortalem’. He claims that possiblity and necessity coincide in case (1) with actuality. This gives five modalities in all. 12) Note that Chrysippus too engaged in calculation but of different sort. He asked how many distinct conditionals could be formed from a set of ten distinct simple propositions. This is a combinatorial problem which when precisely formulated has a definite finite answer. See Stanley (1997), 344-350, also available on line at http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PlutarchNumbers. html. 13) Note that there is no hint in Boethius that we might quantify the whole conditional. 14) DHS 1.2.1: ‘At in his propositionibus quae conditionales dicuntur non est idem praedicationis modus; neque enim omnino alterum de altero praedicatur, sed id tantum dicitur esse alterum, si alterum fuerit, ueluti cum dicimus: “Si peperit, cum uiro concubuit”. Non enim tunc dicitur ipsum peperisse id esse quod est cum uiro concumbere, sed id tantum proponitur quod partus numquam esse potuisset nisi fuisset cum uiro concubitus.’


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Uttering an affirmative categorical we assert that there is something to which the subject term applies and that the predicate term applies to it too. With the corresponding conditional we indicate only that there is a connection between their applicability without committing ourselves to their application.15 According to Boethius the connection in question is the necessity of inseparability. This relation between antecedent and consequent, he notes, is usually indicated with ‘si ’ but sometimes ‘cum’16 may be used instead to form a conditional. He claims, however, that although both of these conjunctions indicate the inseparability of consequent from antecedent, there is a distinction between them. With ‘cum’ only accidental inseparability is indicated. The heavens are necessarily spherical and fire is necessarily hot so ‘cum ignis calidus sit, coelum rotundum est ’ is a true hypothetical. It is not possible for either the antecedent or the consequent to be false and so not possible for the antecedent to be true and the consequent false. Boethius maintains, on the other hand, that the conjunction ‘si ’ indicates in addition to inseparability some kind of explanatory connection. In the case of ‘si est homo, est animal’, he tells us, the consequent explains the antecedent, since it is the genus which is the cause of the species. In the case of ‘si terrae fuerit obiectus, defectio lunae consequitur ’ the antecedent explains the consequent. Unfortunately Boethius tells us no more about these explanatory connections and seems here to suppose that inseparablity is both necessary and sufficient for consequence.17 Thus: If someone wishes to oppose a conditional proposition he will bring it about that he destroys the consequence. For example, he will not oppose the consequence ‘if a is, then b is’ if he

15) DHS 1.2.2: ‘In praedicatiua igitur id spectabimus quod ipse homo animal sit, id est nomen in se suscipiat animalis, in conditionali uero illud intellegimus, quod si fuerit aliqua res quae homo esse dicatur, necesse sit aliquam rem esse quae animal nuncupetur. Itaque praedicatiua propositio rem quam subicit praedicatae rei suscipere nomen declarat; conditionalis uero propositionis haec sententia est, ut ita demum sit aliquid, si fuerit alterum, etiamsi neutrum alterius nomen excipiat.’ 16) DHS 1.3.1 ‘Possunt autem aliquando etiam hoc enuntiari modo: “cum hoc sit, illud est” ueluti cum dicimus: “cum homo est, animal est” uel: “cum homo est, equus non est”; quae enuntiatio propositionis eiusdem potestatis est cuius ea quae hoc modo proponitur: “si homo est, animal est”, “si homo est, equus non est”.’ 17) Matters are in fact a bit more complicated since consequence seems to include both inseparability and incompatibility; DHS 1.2.5: ‘. . . aut in conditione posita consequentia ui coniunctionis uel disiunctionis ostenditur.’

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shows either that a does not hold or b does not hold. Rather he must show that if a is posited b does not immediately follow, but that a may be even if b is not.18

Boethius goes on, however, to claim that conditionals, like simple categoricals, are either affirmative or negative and that the quality of a conditional is determined by that of its consequent. Whatever the quality of its antecedent, a simple conditional with an affirmative consequent is thus affirmative, one with a negative consequent is negative, and likewise for composite conditionals. Quality defined for conditionals in this way is, I think, an attempt to make the account of simple conditionals accord with that of categorical propositions. It also suggests that Boethius supposes that the negation of a given conditional is the conditional whose antecedent is the same as but whose consequent is the negation of the consequent of the original. This suggestion is confirmed, as we will see by his account of the logic of compound conditionals. Despite this, however, it is clear from his repeated appeal to examples that contradict it that Boethius does not accept the principle of conditional excluded middle, the principle, that is, that an affirmative and the corresponding negative conditional divide truth and falsity between them.19 It is Boethius’ apparent confusion of the criterion which he gives for the quality of conditionals with his account of what is required to show that a conditional is false which makes his logic so difficult for later writers. Boethius spends the second and third books of DHS in setting out each of the syllogisms which hold for the various kinds of indefinite conditional and disjunction which he recognises. In every case the syllogism is stated generally, for example ‘if it’s a, then it’s b, but it’s a; therefore it’s b’. Although Boethius says nothing about their application he seems to intended these hypothetical syllogisms to be understood as schemata for inferences with respect to a given subject, that is, for any x, if x is a, then x is b. The one difficult aspect of Boethius’ account of simple conditionals and of conditionals in general is his claim that a conditional (whether simple or composite) with a negative antecedent and an affirmative consequent is true if and 18)

DHS I, ix, 6: ‘Si quis igitur recte conditionali propositioni repugnabit, id efficiet ut earum destruat consequentiam, ueluti cum ita dicimus: “si a est,b est”, non in eo pugnabit si monstret, aut non esse a, aut non esse b, sed si posito quidem a, ostendit non statim consequi esse b, sed posse essea, etiamsi b terminus non sit.’ 19) Just as he, like Aristotle, cannot in general accept that every categorical divides truth and falsity with its negation. The principle fails in the case of indefinite categoricals—‘homo est albus’ and ‘homo non est albus’ may both be true at the same time.


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only if its antecedent and consequent are immediately opposed to one another. That is to say, if and only the terms are both exclusive and exhaustive. In that case, in virtue of the nature of things (natura rerum) rather than the conditional form of the proposition (complexio propositionum), in addition to modus ponens and modus tollens, affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent are also valid argument forms.20 In his discussion of mediate conditionals, however, Boethius argues, for example that from ‘if it’s not a, then it’s b and if it’s b, then it’s c’ and ‘it’s not a’ it follows that ‘it’s c’ but we cannot argue in this case by denying the antecedent since there are counterinstances. Let ‘a’, using Boethius’ example, be ‘irrational’, ‘b’ ‘rational’, and ‘c’ ‘animal’. We infer ‘if it’s not irrational, then it’s an animal’ but the terms ‘irrational’ and ‘animal’ are not, according to Boethius, related as immediate contraries.21 Boethius allows only simple disjunctions in DHS and argues that a given disjunction is equivalent to the conditional whose antecedent is the negation of the first disjunct and whose consequent is the second disjunct. The simple disjunction ‘aut est a aut est b’ is thus equivalent to the conditional ‘si non est a est b’ and so appears as the major in four valid inferences—two in virtue of the complexion and two in virtue of the terms. The three other forms of disjunction each support only the two inferences in virtue of complexion. Boethius’ representations of all the various instances of the hypothetical and disjunctive syllogism must, as I said, apparently be understood as schemata which are to be applied to given subject. It is not possible otherwise, I think, to make sense of his requirement that a conditional appearing as a

20)

Cf 2.3.7: ‘Cum enim dicimus, “si a non est, esse b” si assumamus: “atqui est a” nihil euenit necessarium, ut uel sit b uel non sit, secundum ipsius complexionis naturam. Nam hic quoque, ut in his in quibus in assumptione secundus terminus ponebatur, dicendum est secundum quidem ipsius complexionis figuram nullum fieri syllogismum; secundum terminos uero in quibus solis dici potest, necesse esse, si a fuerit, b non esse. In contrariis enim tantum, et in his immediatis, id est medium non habentibus, haec sola propositio uere poterit praedicari, ueluti cum dicimus: “si dies non est, nox est”; siue non fuerit dies, nox erit, siue nox non fuerit, dies erit, siue dies fuerit, nox non erit, siue nox fuerit, dies non erit.’ 21) Note in the text of DHS as we have it Boethius runs through all of the forms of the mediate hypotheticals and shows in each case, by giving an example, that affirming the consequent and denying the consequent fail. At the end of the discussion of the mediate conditionals of the first figure, however, he remarks that in six cases these argument forms hold in virtue of a property of the terms. These passages are absent in one family of manuscripts, suggesting either that they were suppressed—as Obertello supposes—or that they are a later addition. See DHS (450-451).

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component of a conditional must not itself be true. For example for a proposition of the form ‘si est a, cum sit b, est c’ to be a conditional according to Boethius, being-a must be a genuine condition for being-c being a consequence of being-b. In characterising these conditionals he often uses explanatory adverbs and once speaks of the antecedent as the cause of the consequent.22 He maintains that in order for such a proposition to be genuinely conditional it must be possible for b to hold of something without c also holding of it and so, by his criterion for the destruction of consequences, ‘si est b, est c ’ is false. In order for an instance of modus ponens with a conditional of this kind as its major to be sound, the premisses must thus be understood as applied to a particular subject. For example the syllogism ‘if Socrates is human, then if Socrates is animate, Socrates is an animal, but Socrates is human; therefore if Socrates is animate, then Socrates is an animal’. We have proved the inseparability in Socrates of being animate from being an animal. The explanation is that he is human. Note that Boethius’ worry here cannot be that a compound conditional might satisfy the inseparability condition merely because of the truth-value of one its components. If this were so he would require that a conditional antecedent is not false. He does not do this, however, but rather requires in the case of both ‘if (if it’s a, then it’s b), then it’s c’ and ‘if (if it’s a, then it’s b), then (if it’s c, then it’s d )’ that the component conditionals are all false. Boethius’ account of conditionals with simple conditionals as both antecedent and consequent is particularly curious. He gives as truth-conditions for the first form that neither the antecedent ‘if it’s a, then it’s b’ nor the consequent ‘if it’s c, then it’s d ’ is true but adds that being c must follow from being a, and being d from being b. Thus ‘if (if it’s a human, then it’s a doctor), then (if it’s animate, then it’s an artificer)’ is true, but the conditionalisation of the contraposition of a simple conditional, ‘if (if it’s a, then it’s b), then (if it’s not b, then it’s not a)’, which Boethius elsewhere characterises as a consequence, is not. Boethius describes the operation of modus tollens for simple conditionals in terms of the destruction of the antecedent following from the destruction of the consequent and continues to employ this terminology and that of ‘negat22)

DHS, 3.9.1: ‘Nam, ut superius dictum est, non sufficit quolibet modo iungere terminos, ut fiant hypotheticae propositiones ex duabus conditionalibus coniugatae; neque enim si quis dicat: “Si cum homo est, animal est, cum dies est, lucet” talem fecerit propositionem quae ex duabus conditionalibus constet, idcirco quia prior conditio non est secundae causa conditionis. Hoc igitur superius positarum propositionum ratio demonstrat, quemadmodum fit ut conditionem conditio consequatur.’


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ing’ when giving his account of compound conditionals.23 The puzzle is that he treats the destruction of an affirmative conditional as equivalent to the assertion of the corresponding negative and vice versa. There is no problem, of course, as long as the antecedent is contingent, with arguing from the truth of a negative conditional to the falsity of the corresponding affirmative since they are contrary. In his account of the syllogism, however, Boethius treats negative and affirmative conditionals as if they were contradictory. For example in the schema, ‘if (if it’s a, then it’s b), then (if it’s c, then it’s d), but (if it’s c, then it’s not d); therefore (if it’s a, then it’s not b)’. On his own account of the destruction of a conditional, however, what Boethius should conclude is only that its being a is not inseparable from being b for the subject in question. This, then, was the account of the logic of the conditional which was passed down from antiquity to the philosophers of the twelfth century. Let us now consider how Abaelard responded to it.

Abaelard In the long treatment of the topics in his Dialectica Abaelard develops a sophisticated account of conditional propositions. In particular he takes the satisfaction of Boethius’ inseparability requirement to be necessary but not sufficient for the truth of a conditional, and notes in passing that the condition is satisifed by any conditional with an impossible antecedent. He does not explicitly state the principle that anything follows from an impossibility, but he could hardly be expected to do so since he does not think that following is merely inseparability. In order for a conditional to be true, Abaelard insists, there must be in addition to inseparability a genuine connection between the antecedent and consequent. The required connection exists, he thinks, when the meaning of the consequent is contained in that of the antecedent. 23) For example in discussing the fifth form of the second kind of composite conditional: DHS, III, iv, 3: ‘Ex quinta etiam propositione ita syllogismi fiunt: si non est a, cum sit b, est c; atqui non est a; cum igitur sit b, est c; uel ita: atqui est a, cum igitur sit b, non est c; uel ita: atqui cum sit b, non est c; est igitur a; uel sic: atqui cum sit b, est c, non est igitur a. Quod idcirco euenit ut huiusmodi propositio quatuor colligat syllogismos, quia in his tantum si non sit aliquid esse aliud proponi potest, in quibus contraria medietatibus carent; in his enim uel interempto altero alterum ponitur, uel posito altero alterum necesse est perimatur.’ Compare DHS III, vi, 5: ‘In omnibus enim si quidem uelimus astruere, primam totius propositionis assumemus partem, si uero in conclusione aliquid destruendum est, secunda negabitur.’

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Abaelard believes that his account of the semantics of the conditional generates what we now call a connexive logic, a logic, that is, for which no proposition can entail or be entailed by its contradictory opposite. He concludes that no simple conditional whose antecedent and consequent are of a different quality can be true and so that neither the relation of immediate contrariety nor any other kind of opposition can warrant the truth of a conditional. It follows that a hypothetical syllogism with such a conditional as its major premiss will be valid but never sound. Abaelard also notes that it follows from his definition of consequence in terms of containment of sense that only one kind of affirmative categorical can entail a conditional: We concede no categoricals to be antecedent to hypotheticals other than those which show the nature of things, which preserve for ever the necessity of consecution as, for example, ‘animal is the genus of human’ is to the consequence ‘if something is human, then it’s an animal’.24

Since conditionals are true, according to Abaelard, whether or not there exist things of which they might be asserted, the only categoricals which can follow from conditionals are those negative propositions whose truth is compatible with the non-existence of their subjects. His example is that the categorical ‘no human is a stone’ follows from the conditional ‘if something is human, then it’s not a stone’. Within Abaelard’s connexive logic this latter conditional is false, and necessarily so, but if it were true, then it would follow in virtue of the meaning of the conditional that no human is a stone. Abaelard goes on to explicitly contrast his own view with that of the majority who he says hold that conditionals are equipollent to the corresponding universal categoricals.25 Conditionals whose antecedent and consequent are both simple conditionals are much happier constructions for Abaelard since he believes that every 24)

Abaelard, Dialectica, III.1 (Peter Abelard [1970], 283 [all page references are to this edition]): ‘Unde non alias categoricas ad hypotheticas antecedere concedimus, nisi quod rerum naturam ostendant, quae consecutionis necessitatem in perpetuum cusdiant, ut istam: “animal est genus hominis” ad huiusmodi consequentiam: “si est homo, est animal”.’ 25) Dialectica, IV.1 (475-476): ‘Affinitas autem tanta est istarum <cum> contrariis ut fere ab omnibus mutuam ad eas inferentiam habere concedantur. Has enim inuicem aequipollere secundum mutuam inferentiam annuunt. Hinc quidem “omnis homo est animal” ac “si est homo, est animal” illinc uero “nullus homo est animal” ac “si est homo, non est animal”. Nos tamen qui, ut in sequentibus apparebit, has omnes inferentias non recipimus, aequipollentiam uerae inferentiae in eis non concedimus.’


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simple conditional entails its contrapositive.26 Unfortunately, as we saw, Boethius will allow neither Abaelard’s compounds of conditional and categorical nor his conditionals with both antecedent and consequent conditional as the major premisses of a hypothetical syllogism since he requires that the component conditionals in such propositions are not themselves true. For Abaelard, furthermore, the truth of a conditional which is warranted by a relationship between predicate terms is independent of the subject of which it is asserted. If he followed Boethius, valid arguments which detach conditional consequents from their antecedents could not possibly be sound.27 Abaelard is thus presented with an account of the logic of the conditional a good part of which can be of no use to him beyond providing a purely formal exercise. And even here, I think, it is ultimately of no interest. Abaelard clearly has concepts of propositional content and propositional operation like our own, and thus formulates the primitive inference rule modus ponens and the derived rule modus tollens in a completely general way, applicable to conditionals of any degree of complexity.28 Presented with Boethius’ remarks on the destruction of consequences and negative conditionals Abaelard appeals to a distinction which he first makes for categorical propositions between negation as a propositional operation, what he calls destructive negation, and separative negation. The destructive negation of a given proposition is simply the proposition which is true if and only if the proposition negated is false. It is marked by preposing the negative particle to the proposition to be negated, and it is iterable without limit. Separative negation, on the other hand, is defined on a case by case basis for different kinds of propositions. Abaelard follows Boethius in characterising a conditional as affirmative if and only if it has an affirmative consequent.29 Only affirmative conditionals have separative negations and 26)

I.e. (p->q) (not:q->not:p). Suppose Abaelard accepted that ‘a->(b-c)’ is true only if ‘b->c’ is false. ‘b->c’ then cannot be true of any subject. But then although the inference ‘a->(b->c), a |- (b->c)’ is valid can never be sound. 28) Dialectica, IV, I (500-501). 29) See Dialectica, II, ii (176-177): ‘Multum enim refert ad sententiam enuntiationis, cum praeposita negatiua particula totam exigit et destruit affirmationem, et cum eadem interposita terminorum separationem facit, quod quidem ex hypotheticis quoque enuntiationibus ostenditur. Non enim eadem est sententia istarum: (1) “si est homo, non est iustus” et (2) “non si est homo, est iustus”. Illa namque demonstrat hominis positionem non pati iustum, haec uero non necessario exigere iustum; quod uerum est, illud autem falsum. Et haec quidem quae negatione praemissa totam hypotheticam perimit, hanc scilicet: (3) “si est homo, est iustus”, eius propria negatio dicitur ac recte diuidens, quae scilicet nec uera simul cum ea nec falsa esse potest, quippe 27)

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these are obtained by negating the consequent.30 Where it makes a difference, the negation of the consequent may be either its destructive or separative negation.31 The second is more opposed to the affirmative conditional than the first and properly speaking its contrary. In order to make something of the inferences set out in DHS, Abaelard draws attention to Boethius’ method of constructing compound conditionals. The principle connective here is always ‘si ’ and the embedded conditional is always formed with ‘cum’. Since for consequence Boethius apparently requires only inseparability, this is probably no more than a stylistic point but Abaelard connects it to the distinction between explanatory and non-explanatory consequences to make a contrast between conditionals and what he calls temporal propositions. According to Abaelard, translating ‘cum’ as ‘when’: Boethius called those propositions ‘temporal’ in which something is conjoined to something temporally and not conditionally, as for example: ‘when it rains, there is thunder’. For here it is not proposed that ‘if it rains, then there is thunder’, but rather ‘when it rains it also thunders’, that is, that at the time at which one occurs (quo tempore), so also does the other, as if they were said to occur simultaneously.32

Abaelard goes on to say that temporals hold so long as their components hold together, independently of whether they are able to occur apart, or whether one eius sensum simpliciter destruit. Illa uero simul esse falsa potest, numquam autem simul uera. Unde potius contraria ei uidetur quam contradictoria. Sic quoque in categoricis propositionibus ea tantum propria contradictio ac recte diuidens cuilibet affirmationi uidetur quae negatione praeposita totam eius sententiam destruit, ut eius quae est: “omnis homo est homo” ea quae est: “non omnis homo est homo”, non ea quae est: “quidam homo non est homo”; haec enim fortasse simul erit falsa cum ea. Re enim hominis prorsus non existente neque ea uera est quae ait: “omnis homo est homo” nec ea quae proponit: “quidam homo non est homo”, hoc est “quaedam res quae est animal rationale mortale, non est animal rationale mortale”; “hominis” enim nomen nonnisi ex praesentia animalis rationalitate et mortalitate informati impositum fuit.’ 30) Dialectica, IV, i (478): ‘Cuilibet enim propositioni ad totam eius sententiam perimendam negatio praeponi poterit; aeque quidem et ad “Socrates est homo” et ad “Socrates non est homo”. Omnis itaque propositio negatiuam destructoriam habere poterit, sed non omnis separatiuam nisi sola affirmatiua: terminorum enim est separatio, totius uero propositionis destructio.’ 31) The separative negation of a simple proposition entails its destructive negation so Abaelard argues that the ‘separative negative’ for a given affirmative is more more opposed to it than the destructive negative. 32) Dialectica, IV, i (473): ‘Temporales uero illas Boethius uocauit quae temporaliter, non conditionaliter, aliquid alicui coniungunt, ut ista: “cum pluit, tonat”. Non enim hoc loco proponitur quod si pluit, tonat, sed magis id dicitur quod quando pluit, et tonat, id est: “quo tempore unum contingit, et alterum”, ac si uidelicet utrumque simul fieri diceretur.’


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requires the other. We cannot immediately conclude, however, that there is no necessity here since he also characterises the truth of temporal propositions as requiring concomitance rather than consecution; ‘consecution’ and ‘concomitance’, though without qualification, are the terms he uses in contrasting the necessity of entailment with the weaker necessity of mere inseparability. Furthermore, in the passage just quoted ‘at the time’ translates ‘quo tempore’ which is precisely the phrase which Boethius uses to characterise the inseparability of the heavens being spherical from the hotness of fire,33 Abaelard’s observation that the components of the temporal might hold apart from one another might thus be a reference to merely conceptual possibility.34 If this were so, however, Abaelard would be committed to identifying omnitemporal coincidence with inseparability and possibility with actuality at a time. I have argued elsewhere, however, that there is strong evidence that he does not understand possibility in this way.35 That he does not do so here is confirmed by his later explicit statement of the truth conditions for temporal propositions. The compound temporal proposition formed from the two propositions ‘Socrates was a youth’ and ‘Socrates was an infant’ is true at a given time, he tells us, just in case each component is true at that time, and so true now of the old Socrates. The proposition is not true at every time, however, and for some times one component is true and the other false. Abaelard thus does not commit himself with his example to the omnitemporal coincidence of rain and thunder and the identification of possibility with actuality at a time. Since he holds, however, that what is true of the present is necessarily true of it, a true present tense temporal will in that sense be necessary. All the material needed for the ut nunc conditional is here though Abaelard himself does not use the expression.

33) DHS, I, iii, 6: ‘Secundum accidens hoc modo, ut cum dicimus: “cum ignis calidus sit, coelum rotundum est”. Non enim quia ignis calidus est, coelum rotundum est, sed id haec propositio designat, quia quo tempore ignis calidus est, eodem tempore coelum quoque rotundum est.’ 34) Abaelard’s next remark seems to tell very much in favour of a reading which distinguishes between temporal coincidence and necessary comitatio without consequence: Dialectica, IV, i, pp. 482-483: ‘In his autem quarum consecutio nihil aliud est dicenda quam in eodem tempore comitatio, nulla est consecutionis natura pensanda; sed dum membra sint uera, et ipsam esse ueram consequentiam concedunt, alioquin falsam; et indifferenter alterum ad alterum et antecedere potest et consequi.’ ‘Concedunt’ seems wrong here since there is no reference anywhere to those who might be considering this kind of proposition. Perhaps it should be ‘concedenda’. 35) Martin (2004).

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Abaelard notes that temporal propositions formed with ‘cum’ may be construed either as simple categoricals or as compound propositions. The first reading is the one which interests him since with it he can at least appear to agree with Boethius on modus tollens for compound hypotheticals. The question of how to understand the negation of a conditional had obviously become a pressing one when Abaelard wrote. Faced with Boethius’ claim that the antecedent of a compound conditional must be a genuine condition for the truth of the consequent and his use of the separative rather than the destructive negation, some logicians, Abaelard tells us, had construed the propositions embedded in compound conditionals as temporal compound propositions. In such conditionals they understood the consequential relation to be between the categorical component and the consequent of the embedded temporal compound. As when it is said ‘if (when it’s animate it’s human), then it’s an animal’ the force of entailment is between human and animal, and animate plays no role in the entailment but is set down as a certain accompaniment, just as in the case of the consequence ‘if it’s human and a stone, then it’s an animal’, where the entire force of entailment is between human and animal.36

On this interpretation the antecedent of the embeded proposition is, as it were, held fixed in modus tollens. Since for the truth of ‘if (when it’s a it’s b), it’s c’ being b must entail being c, if c is not predicated of a given subject, they supposed, we may infer that neither is b but that nevertheless the subject remains an a. Abaelard notes, however, that to save Boethius those who interpreted the inference in this way were forced to substitute ‘quamvis’ for ‘cum’ and to draw the conclusion that although it’s a, it’s not b.37 Their interpretation fails he argues because the substitution of ‘quamvis’ for ‘cum’ will often result in a conclusion which is necessarily false. If, for instance, we take stone as the subject of the above inference we may argue: if (when a stone is animate, it is human), then it is an animal, but a stone is not an animal; therefore although 36)

Dialectica, IV, i (484): ‘Veluti cum dicitur: “si (cum est animatum est homo), est animal” inter “hominem” et “animal” uis inferentiae consideratur et “animatum” quidem ad inferentiam non operatur, sed ad quamdam comitationem ponitur, ueluti si talis fieret consequentia: “si est homo et lapis, est animal”cum inter “hominem” solum et “animal” tota uis inferentiae penderet.’ 37) Dialectica, IV, i (484): ‘Ideoque in destructione “cum” in “quamuis” conuertunt, ac si ita dicerent: “quamuis etiam esset animatum”. Alioquin Boethium non possunt absoluere qui tantum ad sequentem partem temporalis negationem apponit, secundum id scilicet quod ad eam uis inferentiae respicit, siue scilicet temporalis ad categoricam siue categorica antecedat ad temporalem.’


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a stone is animate, it is not human. From this conclusion we may infer that a stone is an animal. Furthermore, Abaelard notes,38 the proponents of this theory are committed to an account of modus tollens for conditionals with both antecedent and consequent conditional which is incompatible with that given by Boethius. If what is important in deciding the form of the conclusion are the terms between which the relation warranting the entailment holds, then ‘if (when it’s a it’s b), then (when it’s c it’s d), but when its not c it’s d; therefore when it’s not a it’s b’, is as much an instance of modus tollens as the form given by Boethius since for the truth of the conditional a must entail c, and b must entail d. The fundamental problem with this theory, however, is that it fails to locate the relation of entailment at stake in modus tollens in the proper place. What is asserted in asserting a conditional, as Abaelard with his clear understanding of propositionality explicitly recognises, is that the consequent conditional follows from its antecedent. If the antecedent is compound then the consequent follows from the whole compound even though the conditional may be true because of a relationship between only one component of the antecedent and the consequent of the whole conditional.39 The only way to solve the problems posed by Boethius’ text, according to Abaelard, is to emend. To construe the temporal components of putatively compound conditionals as categoricals and so the conditionals themselves a simple. Using ‘quando’ (‘when’) rather than ‘cum’ he thus proposes that we analyse the temporal proposition ‘fire is hot when the heavens are spherical’ as having ‘fire’ for its subject, ‘is hot’ for its predicate and ‘when the heavens are spherical’ as a determination of the predicate, thus: [ignis]subject—[quando caelum est rotundum]Determination—(est)[calidus]Predicate]40

38)

Dialectica, IV, i (487): ‘Amplius: si secundum uim inferentiae destructiones in his oporteat pensare, quare in his hypotheticis quae ex duabus temporalibus iunguntur, in quibus duplex uis inferentiae consideratur, non sint duplices destructiones? Veluti cum ita proponitur: si cum est homo est medicus, cum est animal est artifex ‘homo’ enim ad ‘animal’ et ‘medicus’ ad ‘artificem’ tamquam ad sua tota referuntur.’ 39) Dialectica, IV, i (485-486): ‘Primumque illam calumniemur defensionem quam praetendunt de destructione secundum principalem inferentiam, ueluti cum dicitur: “si (cum est animatum est homo), est animal” hic enim uim inferentiae inter “hominem” et “animal” considerant; nihil enim magis ‘animatum’ quam quislibet alius terminus operatur. Sed dico quod licet uis inferentiae in terminis consistat, tota tamen est propositio destruenda.’ 40) Abaelard employs this analysis of categoricals elsewhere in his analyses of modal propositions and of ‘qualifications’ (constantia) in explaining how the to qualify conditionals connecting immediate opposites to avoid paradoxes.

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In negating this categorical, Abaelard insists, we must remove both the predicate and the determination. In the problem case of ‘if (when a stone is animate, it’s human), then it’s an animal’, the negation of the antecedent understood as a temporal categorical is thus the claim that a stone does not have the property of being human-when-it-is-animate, which does not entail that it has the property of being animate. If we treat temporals as categoricals in this way and read each of Boethius’ embedded hypotheticals as a temporal categorical, then his various strange hypothetical syllogisms are valid. They are valid, however, only because they are no longer strange but simply so many substitution instances of modus ponens and modus tollens with the conditional connective and negation understood as propositional operations. Abaelard thus has a cure for Boethius but in the end he does not apply it. Rather he adopts the alternative emendation which does not even save the appearance of Boethius’ arguments. In glossing the all the various kinds of hypothetical syllogism provided by his ancient authority Abaelard reads the embedded hypotheticals as compound temporal propositions and in every case replaces the negation of the consequent with the negation of the whole compound. Again Boethius’ syllogisms become valid arguments but again they are no more than substitution instances of modus ponens and modus tollens constructed by a logician who has a clear understanding of propositional form. If Abaelard could not save Boethius, then no one can. The logic of the conditional is straightforward enough when one properly understands it as a propositional connective. The basic inference forms are, modus ponens and transitivity, with modus tollens as a derived rule. There is no special place in such a logic for Boethius’ curious conditionals and no place at all for his consequent negation. It is not surprising, then, that a century after Abaelard had demonstrated this there was no place for Boethius’ book on the hypothetical syllogism in list of required reading at Paris.


www.brill.nl/viv

Are Thoughts and Sentences Compositional? A Controversy between Abelard and a Pupil of Alberic on the Reconciliation of Ancient Theses on Mind and Language* Martin Lenz Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Abstract This paper reconstructs a controversy between a pupil of Alberic of Paris and Peter Abelard which illustrates two competing ways of reconciling different ancient traditions. I shall argue that their accounts of the relation between sentences and thoughts are incompatible with one another, although they rely on the same set of sources. The key to understanding their different views on assertive and non-assertive sentences lies in their disparate views about the structure of thoughts: whereas Abelard takes thoughts to be compositional, the opponent’s arguments seem to rely on the premise that the mental states which correspond to sentences cannot be compositional in the way that Abelard suggested. Although, at a first glance, Abelard’s position appears to be more coherent, it turns out that his opponent convincingly argues against weaknesses in Abelard’s semantic theory by proposing a pragmatic approach. Keywords compositionality, semantics, language, assertive and non-assertive language, thought

Introduction A weak but general notion of compositionality can be summarised as the idea that the meaning of a sentence is determined by the meaning of its parts.

*) I am very grateful to Margaret Cameron, John Marenbon and Irène Rosier-Catach for discussing my views and for letting me have copies of their papers from 2004 in advance of publication. I would also like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for the generous support of my studies. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI:10.1163/156853407X217704

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Although medieval philosophers did not endorse the stronger tenet (held by Frege) that words have meaning only in the context of a sentence, most medieval philosophers held some version of the weaker claim, which is implicit in the logic of Aristotle.1 If, however, one wants to explicate in what way sentences and the corresponding thoughts are compositional, one faces enormous difficulties, many of which are still debated. Can thoughts and sentences be structured in similar ways? Can we ascribe semantically complex structures to ontologically simple units? Do thoughts that correspond to assertive sentences share the contents of thoughts that correspond to non-assertive sentences? In the twelfth century there is an increasing number of conflicting commentaries on Aristotle’s De interpretatione, and, as is well known, especially Peter Abelard’s commentary was intensely challenged for various reasons. Like Aristotle himself, most medieval logicians of this time and later periods discussed the central topic of De interpretatione, i.e. the notion of the sentence, with regard to truth and falsity, thereby highlighting the assertive sentence or statement (propositio, oratio enuntiativa) in their semantic analyses. But in focusing on the question of how to give an adequate definition of the assertive sentence, the problem emerged how to distinguish the assertive sentence from other types of sentences (namely non-assertive sentences). Aristotle had tackled, or rather avoided, this problem by simply excluding non-assertive sentences from the realm of logic.2 By contrast, the Stoics defended a view which explicitly includes the lekta of non-assertive sentences in their analyses, and although Abelard and his contemporaries knew very little of Stoic philosophy, parts of its positions had been transmitted through the well known writings of authorities such as Augustine, Boethius and Priscian.3 The early medieval writers were well aware of the problems posed by Aristotle’s exclusion, and tried to fill the gaps by reconciling Aristotle’s theses with the logical and grammatical traditions that account for the relation between the different types of sentences. In this paper I would like to introduce a controversy between a pupil of Alberic of Paris and Abelard which shows two very disparate ways of reconciling the different traditions. I shall argue that their accounts of the relation between sentences and thoughts are incompatible with one another, although they rely on the same set of sources. The key to understanding their different views and to seeing how they combine the ancient views is, I believe, the fact

1) 2) 3)

See Meier-Oeser (2004), 321-322. See Aristotle (1966), 17a1-7. See e.g. Long and Sedley (1987), 199-201.

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that they have disparate views about the structure of thoughts (intellectus): whereas Abelard takes thoughts or understandings of sentences to be compositional, the opponent’s arguments seem to rely on the premise that the mental states which correspond to sentences are not compositional, or at least not compositional in the way that Abelard suggested. The question of the compositionality of mental states is not explicitly answered in Aristotle’s De interpretatione. And one might read the theses of later authors such as Boethius and Priscian, who invoke Stoic ideas on the subject, as an attempt to settle this question. To introduce the problem under discussion I would like you to consider the following situation. Suppose you happen to bump into an old friend in the street. The very moment he spots you he starts trembling all over. What would you think? Imagine that you have lent him money some time ago, then you might think something along the lines of “He is obviously scared”—“Scared of what?”—“Maybe he is afraid that I might want my money back.” Your friend might say to you: “If only I had some money on me!” Or: “I fear that I haven’t got enough money on me.” Or: “If I had enough money on me, I would give it back to you right away.” Some models of language and mind seem to offer quite coherent accounts of such a situation. One that might come to mind immediately is the idea of ascribing propositional attitudes in relation to propositional contents. Accordingly, one could ascribe the attitude of desire or fear to a person in relation to the content “that he hasn’t got enough money.” If one intends to ascribe such an attitude to someone, one needs some sort of unit to relate it to—ideally a unit of language. But the talk of units is prejudiced: we must have an opinion about what constitutes a unit and what doesn’t, and as soon as there are parts involved and we are not solely relying on (ontologically) simple units, we must have some notion of a complete unit. In contemporary philosophy of language and mind the notion of perfection or completeness plays an important role with regard to determining speech acts, thoughts, propositions (understood as significates of sentences) and such like. The central idea of speech act theory, usually traced back to J. Austin and J. Searle, is that sentences can be construed as expressions of speech acts and analysed into two components: (1) the illocutionary act and the (2) propositional content of the illocutionary act. Accordingly, the same propositional content can be expressed with an assertive mode or a non-assertive mode, so that all sentences can be said to have the same structure, consisting of the (1) mode-indicator (or illocutionary force indicator) and the (2) propositional indicator. When Searle developed this theory and even when he several years

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later put the distinction between illocution and content to use with regard to the mental sphere—distinguishing between (1) psychological mode (propositional attitude) and (2) intentional content—, the notion of completeness must have been quite uncontroversial, for he writes without further explanation: “. . . the grammatical clothing of an illocutionary act is the complete sentence.”4 Any history of medieval philosophy with so much hindsight is of course dangerously prone to anachronism. But precisely for that reason it might be helpful to give some direction in the way of marking the starting point. As I have shown elsewhere, the twelfth century philosopher Peter Abelard defended a theory that resembles modern accounts of propositional attitudes and that goes far beyond the established Aristotelian conceptions of the sentence.5 It is of course possible to challenge such a way of analysing sentences on various grounds. Is it, for instance, plausible to assume the suggested correspondence between language and thought? In the example given above it is suggested that both the trembling and the exclamation (“If only I had . . .”) express a mental state in relation to a content. But can we really assume that the speaker (your friend) thinks the same as the hearer (you), or that he has cognitive access to the content that his trembling and his utterance of the sentence is supposed to express? Can we ascribe contents to a trembling? One might claim that at least the sentences “If only I had some money on me!” “I fear that I haven’t got enough money on me” and “I haven’t got enough money on me” are compositional in the sense that they are related to contents which could be called identical in a certain way. But can we equally claim that the thoughts of the speaker are the same, let alone the truth conditions? And do the speaker and the hearer have the same thoughts? Do they have access to the same contents? In what follows, I would like to confront Abelard’s theory with the critique of an Albricanus (i.e. an anonymous pupil of Abelard’s opponent Alberic of

4)

Searle (1969), 25 (italics mine); cf. ibid. 23 (italics mine): ‘Thus we shall say that in the utterance of all four [sc. ‘Sam smokes habitually.’, ‘Does Sam smoke habitually?’, ‘Sam, smoke habitually!’, ‘Would that Sam smoked habitually.’] the reference and predication are the same, though in each case the same reference and predication occur as part of acomplete speech act which is different from any of the other three.’ 5) Cf. Lenz (2005). I hasten to add that—although Abelard distinguishes between propositional attitudes (affectus animi) and contents (intellectus)—he does not develop an exhaustive theory of speech acts.

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Paris) in the light of the different traditional theses that both authors were drawing on. I shall then argue that Abelard’s semantics of sentences is countered with a communicative account of sentences, which seems to block Abelard’s idea of compositionality. Finally, I would like to draw some tentative conclusions about the outcome of the controversy between Abelard and the Albricani.

Traditional Sources of the Debate It is plausible to assume that the anonymous author studied logic in Paris around 1130. His Glossae “doctrinae sermonum” obviously reflect the teachings of Abelard and Alberic of Paris, but show a strong inclination towards Alberic’s opinions, which is why we might refer to him as one of the Albricani. The controversy between Alberic’s anonymous pupil and Abelard was first noted by Lambertus de Rijk,6 and it has been brought to our close attention through a very influential article by Klaus Jacobi, Christian Strub and Peter King. However, it has never been studied in its own right.7 A comparative reading of Abelard’s Logica and the Albricanus’s Glossae “doctrinae sermonum” immediately reveals two striking facts: (1) the anonymous author is very familiar with Abelard’s text, and (2), although he discusses the very issues that “would prompt Abelard to develop”8 the famous notion of the dictum,9 he does not mention the term once. What are we to make of this omission? A well supported conclusion is that the Albricanus simply did not know the term, because, as John Marenbon has convincingly argued, at this late stage Abelard might have re-used the teaching-material from his Logica without referring to dicta anymore.10 This conclusion, however, does not rule out another possibility which arises if we take the anonymous author’s semantic approach seriously: the Albricanus might have had no use for the notion within his semantic framework, no matter whether he knew the term or not.

6) See De Rijk (1966); cf.. 46ff. for transcriptions from the Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’. A critical edition of the text is currently being prepared by Peter King. 7) See Jacobi, Strub and King (1996), 15-40. Their theses are challenged in Rosier-Catach (2004) and Marenbon (2004a). 8) Jacobi et al. (1996), 37. 9) The dictum-theory has received very much attention; a concise survey of various interpretations is provided by Marenbon (1997a), 202-209. In short: the dictum is that which is stated by an assertive sentence. 10) Cf. Marenbon (2004a).

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Now, this conclusion gains some support if we assume that the controversy is not about dicta at all, but rather about Abelard’s distinction between affective propositional attitudes (affectus) and their contents (intellectus), and thus about the question whether the understandings or thoughts of sentences are compositional in the way that Abelard suggested. To endorse this interpretation, I would like to turn briefly to the background of the controversy, so as to name the “main ingredients” of Abelard’s and the Albricanus’s positions. An obvious source is Aristotle, since both works are commentaries on his De interpretatione. But both authors also refer to theories, or rather parts of theories which come from quite different logical and grammatical traditions, such as the ancient semantics of verbs, Priscian’s definition of the sentence, and Boethius’s version of the division between complete and incomplete sentences.11 The grammarian Priscian—strongly influenced by the Stoics—adopted the position of Apollonius Dyscolos according to which the different modes of verbs express different emotional or volitional inclinations of the speaker’s soul (Modi sunt inclinationes animi, varios eius affectus indicantes).12 That means that if I utter a sentence such as “I haven’t got enough money” using the indicative mode, I simply make an assertion, but if I utter the sentence “If only I had enough money!” I express an attitude, namely a desire. Another ingredient is Priscian’s definition of oratio, according to which a ’sentence is a congruous order of words, demonstrating a complete sense’ (oratio est ordinatio dictionum congrua, perfectam sententiam demonstran’).13 A third ingredient is Boethius’s division of complete and incomplete sentences, according to which an incomplete sentence such as “a running man” leaves the hearer in suspense, whereas, on hearing a complete sentence such as “a man runs”, the hearer’s mind rests.14 The central distinction that Abelard employed in his account of propositional attitudes and their contents is the division between complete and incomplete sentences (orationes perfectae et imperfectae). Although there are different

11)

See Ebbesen (1982), 101-127, cf. esp. 109-111. Priscian (1855), 421. The interpretations of this tenet in the tradition of the grammatica speculativa are quite different from the interpretations discussed here: see Kelly (2002) 124-127. 13) Priscian (1855), 53. Cf. Kelly (2002), 154ff. 14) See Boethius (1880), 8-9: ‘Orationum uero aliae sunt perfectae, aliae imperfectae. Perfectae sunt ex quibus plene id quod dicitur ualet intellegi; imperfectae in quibus aliquid adhuc plenius animus exspectat audire . . .’ 12)

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criteria for distinguishing those, it is—at least by the time of Abelard— generally agreed that a complete sentence contains a finite verb (e.g. homo currit), whereas an incomplete sentence does not (e.g. homo currens.)15 Now, where did Abelard adapt this distinction from? It is rightly claimed that the division as such dates back at least to the Peripatetic and Stoic philosophers and was taken up and transmitted by authors such as Augustine, Boethius, Ammonius and Al-Farabi.16 As could easily be demonstrated, Aristotle’s and Priscian’s models for distinguishing the different units of language are not as compatible as some medieval logicians and grammarians might have claimed or wished, since they rely on different criteria, such as truth and falsity (Aristotle) and completeness (Priscian). In this respect it is interesting to note that the Stoic notion of the lekton is quite often, if tentatively, compared to the notion of the dictum, the significatum propositionis, the enuntiabile or the complexe significabile. But already at this point it should be clear that—even if one puts the question of evidence for direct historical links to the Stoics aside—the comparison falls short, since the lektón covers more types of sentences than the dictum (which only relates to what statements say). The Stoics construed the notion of lekton not only with regard to true or false statements but also with regard to non-assertive sentences such as wishes and commands.17 Augustine cites the distinction between complete assertive and complete non-assertive sentences (in the very text in which he refers to the Stoic lekton by introducing the term dicibile) in his De dialectica.18 But Abelard quotes neither the Stoics nor Augustine explicitly in this context, even if we can be certain that he adopted many Augustinian ideas. In his discussions of the notion of sentence (oratio), both in the Dialectica and the Logica Ingredientibus, he mainly refers to Aristotle, Boethius and Priscian. Their positions are well known and extensively discussed in the early Middle Ages, particularly in the various redactions of the Glosule super Priscianum which circulated in the early twelfth century, and some of which are linked to Abelard’s teacher and opponent William of Champeaux.19

15)

Some previous opinions reported in the Glosule super Priscianum from early tweltfth century still disagree about this issue. Cf. Rosier-Catach (2004). 16) See Schneider (1993); cf. Lenz (2003), 45. 17) Cf. Hülser (1992), 17-34. 18) See Augustine (1975), esp. c. 2. 19) See Cameron (2004); cf. Rosier-Catach (2004).

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Yet, the transmission of the relevant doctrines to Abelard and to the Albricani cannot be taken as matter of simple adoption. We can see this in the view taken by the generation after Abelard. Already the Dialectica Monacensis—a text dating from around 1160 (i.e. not more than thirty years after Abelard and Alberic taught in Paris)—reveals a striking awareness of the fact that the early 12th century version of the distinction between complete and incomplete sentences, although already present in Boethius, was considered an innovation in its own right in the early medieval artes, developed independently of the works of Aristotle and Priscian by authors such as Abelard: Et notandum quod ista divisio orationis neque habetur a Prisciano neque ab Aristotile, sed solum magistralis est.20 So, roughly speaking, we might distinguish two different periods of discussion with respect to this notion of sentence: firstly, the debates in the Glosule super Priscianum which mainly attempt to distinguish the grammatical accounts of the doctrine from the logicians’ views; secondly, the views of Abelard and his contemporaries, who—although referring to the Glosule— try to combine logical and grammatical aspects. As will become clear, however, Abelard and the Albricanus have quite different ways of combining these aspects. But before we move on to the details of the controversy, let me briefly recall the main points of Abelard’s position.21

Abelard’s Position Abelard united the traditional theses into an independent account and developed a structural model of sentences and thoughts that amounts to a distinction between propositional attitudes and propositional contents. And here, unlike in Searle, the notion of completeness (perfectio) does not only carry a lot of theoretical weight, but is examined in detail.22 The gist of Abelard’s account can be resumed as follows: (1) A sentence signifies an inherence—i.e. the propositional content (intellectus)—, but the signification (significatio) of a propositional intellectus is a property of complete sentences (such as ‘a man runs’) and of incomplete sentences (such as ‘a running man’) alike. This is why

20)

Dialectica Monacensis, in De Rijk (1967), 467. A more detailed account of the following is given in Lenz (2005). 22) In defence of Searle, one could argue that he ascribes the expressive function not to sentences themselves, but rather claims that the speaker expresses a proposition (in the modern sense) by using a sentence; thus Searle rids himself of the need to explain in what way a sentence is complete. See Searle (1969), 29. 21)

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signification is no criterion of completeness. So a sentence is complete (2) only if it contains a finite verb by means of which (3) the content is expressed in accordance with a certain mental attitude (affectus animi) towards the content, e.g. a wish (‘If only the man would run’) or a belief (‘The man runs’). The main point of Abelard’s argument, however, revolves around his new interpretation of what I call the suspense-criterion. According to Boethius and many of his interpreters the essential criterion for the completeness ( perfectio) lies in the assumption that, on hearing a complete sentence, a hearer does not expect to hear more. Abelard rejects the standard view of the suspense-criterion and refines it with regard to his account. According to him, this criterion cannot be fulfilled by adding to the content of the sentence, but only by expressing the propositional attitude towards the content. So, it does not really matter whether the hearer wants to hear more about the content; the sentence is complete if the attitude is expressed. In the case of a sentence such as “A man runs” I might well want to hear who precisely the man is or where he is running, but my suspense cannot really be released by any more information—unless we would then want to invite the possibility of an infinite regress here. Perfection is gained rather through the expression of the attitude towards the content. So Abelard finally propounds a model of sentences and thoughts that generally allows for an analysis into two sentential and mental components: propositional attitude and content. In sum we can distinguish between the following three kinds of sentences: (1) An incomplete sentence (. . . me legere, ego legens) signifies a thought (that I read): the hearer remains in suspense; no truth value. (2) A complete non-assertive sentence (Utinam legerem) signifies a thought (that I read) and expresses it according to a mental attitude (an affectus animi in optative mode): the hearer rests; no truth value. (3) A complete assertive sentence (Ego lego) signifies a thought (that I read) and expresses it according to a mental attitude (an affectus animi in indicative mode): the hearer rests; truth value (with respect to the dictum).

The Critique of the Albricanus in the Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’ Abelard’s position might seem fairly coherent, but it implies quite a number of systematic difficulties which can’t be considered here. Still, my talk of a distinction between propositional contents and attitudes may seem rather

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anachronistic with regard to the medieval notion of mind (animus) and soul (anima). Since, what I call “propositional attitudes”—i.e. the affectus, which are partially attributed to the souls of irrational animals as well as to humans—was quite often excluded from the analysis of sentences (and the related mental acts). By contrast, in modern philosophy of mind the advantage of the talk of propositional attitudes is precisely that they can be generally ascribed to the cognitive realm, and thereby allow for functionalist explanations of mental processes. Accordingly, I shall have to consider the objection whether my talk of propositional attitudes in Abelard does not muddle up two realms that were separated in medieval thought. In that case I would have to withdraw my interpretation as anachronistic. However, the objection against mixing up two distinct realms in the notion of the propositional attitude has already been raised by the anonymous author of the Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’. The Albricanus accuses Abelard of mixing together affective and cognitive elements in the notion of affectus (or passio). As has been pointed out already, he explicitly refers to Abelard and he sets out his critique with the question as to how Abelard distinguishes between assertive and non-assertive sentences—but his reference to Abelard’s text opens with a blunder: However, Master Peter claims that the same truth or falsehood and the same thought is signified by deprecative and imperative sentences and such like as well as by assertive sentences, so that the same thought is signified by the sentence “I want to read” and by the sentence “If only I read”. Nevertheless he concedes that the former one, viz. ‘I want to read’, is an assertive sentence, because it signifies and states the truth, whereas the latter one, viz. ‘If only I read’, is not, because—although it signifies a truth or falsehood—it does not state it. Since [a sentence] cannot state unless by affirming or negating.’23

As Klaus Jacobi, Christian Strub and Peter King have pointed out, the anonymous author obviously “misrepresents” Abelard’s view, because Abelard never

23) The Perihermenias-Commentary Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’ is preserved in MS Paris, B.N. Lat. 15.015 (ff. 180ra-199ra) and partially edited in De Rijk (1966), 1-57. See p. 47: ‘Dicit tamen Magister Petrus idem verum vel falsum et eundem significari intellectum a deprecativis et inperativis orationibus et consimilibus et ab enuntiationibus, ut idem intellectus significatur ab ista: ‘volo legere’ et ‘utinam legerem’. Alteram tamen tamen concedit propositionem esse, scilicet ‘volo legere’, quia verum significat et enuntiat, alteram non, scilicet ‘utinam legerem’, quia, licet verum vel falsum significet, non tamen enuntiat. Enuntiare enim non potest nisi affirmando vel negando.’

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claimed that non-assertive sentences signify truths or falsehoods.24 And the Albricanus does indeed overlook a central tenet of Abelard: although Abelard claimed that assertive and non-assertive sentences can signify the same thought, he did not claim that this thought is then a true or false thought. Since, on his account, the truth or falsity of a thought is not decided with regard to signification, but with regard to the dictum, i.e. with regard to how things are or aren’t in reality. I would like to argue, however, that the Albricanus’s misrepresentation is an understandable one and even a productive one. This assumption can be supported if we recall the Boethian tenet that is discussed in this dispute. The Albricanus clearly has Boethius’s definition of the assertive sentence in mind: ‘propositio est oratio verum falsumve significans.’25 It is the very definition that inspired Abelard’s reasoning in the passage quoted by the Albricanus. If we try to bring Boethius’s definition into line with Abelard’s tenets, then we arrive at the following conclusion: P1: Assertive sentences signify something true or something false. (Boethius) P2: Non-assertive sentences signify the same as assertive sentences. (Abelard) C : Therefore, non-assertive sentences signify something true or something false. The conclusion (C) is the very starting-point of the anonymous author’s critique in the passage quoted above. Now, Abelard would have had to arrive at the very same conclusion—which is why the “misrepresentation” is indeed an understandable one. He would have had to arrive at this conclusion, had he not introduced the distinction between “signifying” (significare) and “stating” (enuntiare). This distinction allows for the determination of truth and falsehood with regard to how things are, to the dictum. So, for Abelard, Boethius’s

24)

Jacobi et al. (1996), 28. I do not, however, agree with the claim they make in asking rhetorically: ‘After all, how can an expression signify a truth or falsehood without stating it as well?’ It is perfectly plausible that a sentence signifies a truth without stating it—namely in a potential manner, as, e.g., in the case of certain conditionals. And the idea of potential signification was widely discussed already in the Glosule super Priscianum and by students of William of Champeaux; cf. Anonymus, In Periherm., MS Paris B.N. reg. lat. 13368, f. 225rb: ‘Sed videndum est, quod significativum duobis modis accipi potest, scilicet vel actualiter vel potentialiter, id est pro potens generare intellectum vel generans intellectum actualiter.’ (226va) The passage is quoted in Cameron (2004), 101. 25) Boethius (1860), 1174B. Cf. Marenbon (2004a).

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definition is acceptable only in the light of this distinction, at the heart of which lies the distinction between propositional attitude and content. The central criterion is, then, not the signification but the propositional attitude of stating, mirrored by the indicative mode of the verb. And this is a point which we find adopted in later treatises again. In the Dialectica Monacensis, for instance, Boethius’s definition is refined accordingly: “propositio est oratio verum vel falsum significans indicando.”26 The Albricanus, however, does not resort to Abelard’s solution; he declares that the distinction between significare and enuntiare does not explain anything.27 But if we take a closer look at the reasons that drive his argument, we will see why the ‘misrepresentation’ is not only understandable but even productive.

Perspectives of Signification Besides the author’s intention to solve the matter at hand, we must not overlook the wider intention of the early twelfth-century logicians, namely the intention to establish a coherent account of the notion of signification (significatio). The prevailing understanding of that term can be paraphrased with the following definition: “to signify x (to someone” means “to cause a mental act of understanding x in someone” or “to cause a thought of x in someone”. The

26)

Dialectica Monacensis, in De Rijk (1967), 468 (italics mine). The combination of the different definitions of the sentence and of the assertive sentence had led to confusion regarding the coherent classification of linguistic units even before Abelard’s time. Abelard’s idea that incomplete and complete sentences can share the same propositional content, was an innovation that still had to be defended against critiques (such as the one by the author of the Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’ ), especially when it came to the question of how to integrate Boethius’s definition according to which propositio est oratio verum vel falsum significans. In the Dialectica Monacensis (ibid.), however, we find that, by the time of 1160, the idea had obviously received an approval absent from earlier texts: ‘Sic ergo describitur propositio: propositio est oratio verum vel falsum significans indicando. ‘Oratio’ pontur pro genere. Per hanc vero differentiam ‘verum vel falsum significans’ excluduntur alie orationes, que on significant verum vel falsum. Hoc autem dico ‘indicando’ apponitur propter huiusmodi appellationes ‘Sortem currere’, ‘Platonem disputare’, que licet verum vel falsum significent, non tamen cum indicativo modo. Hic debes notare quod hanc differentiam ‘indicando’ nec ponit Aristotiles neque Boethius. . . . Obmittunt autem illam particulam ‘indicando’, quia appellationes quas nos excludimus mediante illa differentia ‘indicando’ a propositione, quantum ad eos excluduntur per hoc nomen ‘oratio’, cum uterque eorum hoc nomen ‘oratio’ restringat ad intentionem perfecte orationis.’ 27) See Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’, in: De Rijk (1966), 47.

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semantics of the twelfth century often focuses on the hearer’s perspective, which is why signification is explained in terms of the hearer’s understanding.28 Particularly with respect to a coherent notion of signification, it is quite appropriate to construe a sign as something that is given to others, something that is rather given for the sake of others than for one’s one sake.29 Accordingly, one could take the most disparate things as signs, such as units of language (taken as conventional signs), the cries of the sick ones or the bark of an irrational dog (taken as natural signs). This way one did not have to ascribe a thought to a dog’s soul, if one wanted to argue that the dog barks without thinking and yet signifies to us (rational beings) that it is angry. Without taking the hearer’s perspective, however, we cannot ascribe meaning to a dog’s bark. In addition to the hearer’s perspective—which is, according to the Glosule, stressed very much by Boethius and which is indeed of major importance with regard to his suspense-criterion—, there are two other complementary perspectives relevant to signification.30 On the one hand there is the notion of signification in accordance with the original imposition or institution (often referred to as the communis causa of the significatio), which is particularly relevant to the distinction of grammatical units: incomplete sentences, it is argued for instance, can be called incomplete because their grammatical structures do not constitute independent units of language insofar as they have not been instituted to be uttered in isolation.31 This also makes clear that these logicians were fully aware of the point that phrases such as homo legens (“man reading”) are not units in the actual use of language but rather the result of semantic analyses.—On the other hand there is of course the speaker’s perspective or the so called “expression semantics”, which is associated with Priscian and the Glosule.

28)

See Marenbon (1997a), 182, who paraphrases this definition given in Spade (1980b). I am very grateful to Katherine Tachau for discussing this point with me. 30) See on this Meier-Oeser (1997), 34-50. It is, however, somewhat unfair to attribute to Boethius a ‘hearer-focused semantics’, as the author of the Glosule does. Boethius’s account of what he calls the orandi ordo does construe communication from the perspective of the hearer and the speaker. Cf. Cameron (2004). 31) See e.g. Peter Abelard (1927), 373: ‘Quantum ergo ad causam inuentionis imperfecta est oratio ‘Socrates currens’ quia, licet et intellectum constituat per se etiam prolata, non propter hoc, ut per se hoc faceret, instituta fuit sed cum aliis uocibus iuncta. Unde et ille qui audit eam proferri et scit eam non esse inuentam propter hoc, ut simpliciter proferretur, aliam exspectat uocem . . .’ I am very grateful to Klaus Jacobi for kindly facilitating a copy of the edition of Abelard’s Logica commentary on De interpretatione that he and Christian Strub prepare for publication in the Corpus Christianorum. References are to Geyer’s edition. 29)

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Hearer and Speaker Now, Abelard’s semantics is commonly associated with Boethius’s hearerfocused account, but his new interpretation of the suspense-criterion does in fact shift the perspective to the speaker-focused account. Since, although the completeness of a sentence is traditionally characterised by the hearer’s resting, Abelard construes completeness with regard to the expression of the propositional attitude. And these tacit shifts from one perspective to the other are made explicit by the Albricanus’s criticisms. Let’s recall the conclusion that the anonymous author had to draw: P1: Assertive sentences signify something true or something false. (Boethius) P2: Non-assertive sentences signify the same as assertive sentences. (Abelard) C : Therefore, non-assertive sentences signify something true or something false. Since the author wants to avoid the conclusion just as much as Abelard, but since he does not accept Abelard’s distinction between significare and enuntiare, he has to explain the role of non-assertive sentences in a different way: he does of course accept P1. So he has to refute P2, if he wants to avoid C. And this is exactly what he attempts to do, when he explains his position from the speaker’s perspective: We claim, however, that imperative or deprecative sentences and such like do by no means signify something true or something false, but that they only constitute certain passions of the mind. We do not concede [that they constitute] a true or false thought. For who says “If only I read!” does not manifest a thought of the mind, but solely the will of the mind.32

In the next part of the argument he shifts the focus to the hearer: However, in the hearer it [viz. the sentence] generates a true thought, since the hearer grasps through his [viz. the speaker’s] words that he wants to read.33

32)

Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’, in De Rijk (1966), 47: ‘Nos autem dicimus orationes imperativas vel deprecativas et huiusmodi nullatenus verum vel falsum significare, sed tantum quasdam animi passiones constituere, non verum vel falsum intellectum concedimus. Qui enim dicit “Utinam legerem!” nullum animi intellectum sed solam animi voluntatem manifestat . . .’ 33) Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’, in De Rijk (1966), 47 (italics mine): ‘. . . in auditore tamen verum generat intellectum; ex verbis enim eius concipit auditor illum velle legere.’

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The whole passage can be resumed as follows: while the speaker solely manifests his will or his affective stance without any access to the (intentional) cognitive content of his will, the hearer does not only grasp the content of the wish (that he reads), but also the passion (the fact that the speaker wishes it) in a reflexive way. I call this way of grasping “reflexive”, because it is not solely directed at a content but combined with the awareness about the way in which we (or, in this case, the speaker) are intentionally related to the content; and thereby the originally affective stance of the speaker is conceptualised in the hearer’s understanding, or grasped per modum conceptus.34 The following table should illustrate the author’s position: Sentence uttered

Speaker’s mind

Hearer’s mind

“Volo legere” (I want to read) “Utinam legerem!” (If only I read!)

intellectus verus

intellectus verus

affectus

intellectus verus

These points are taken up again in the next section of the author’s argument: This is why the sentence “If only I read!” is solely a sign [nota] of the will but not of the thought; yet the sentence “I want to read” is a sign of a thought. Since it demonstrates and signifies the thought of the speaker—but each of the two [sentences] constitutes the same thought in the hearer.35

This means that the sentence “I want to read” is taken as a reflexive understanding of the sentence “If only I read!”, but the speaker manifests his thought only in the reflexive sentence, whereas the hearer always has a reflexive understanding. Therefore the sentences always produce true or false thoughts in the hearer. Another example is given to rub the point in:

34) The phrases ‘per modum conceptus’ and ‘per modum affectus’ do not appear in these early medieval texts, but they aptly express what is meant here. Cf. on the development of this terminology Nuchelmans (1988). A typical example where reflexive thinking is even required is the case of lying, because here it is not enough to grasp the content of the lie, it is also necessary to know that I am lying. 35) Glossae “doctrinae sermonum”, in De Rijk (1966), 47: ‘Unde ista oratio “Utinam legerem!” solius voluntatis et non intellectus nota est, ista vero “Volo legere” intellectus nota est. Intellectus enim proferentis demonstrat et significat—eundem tamen intellectum utraque in auditore constituit.’

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Likewise, if a boy asks that bread should be given to him, by saying “Give me bread!”, he does not use this form of words to manifest the thought that he could have, since he does not think that he wants the [bread], but rather to indicate this affection of the soul. Nevertheless this form of words does constitute a true or false thought in the hearer. Since, who hears this [form of words] understands that [the boy] demands that bread should be given to him. Consequently, such sentences do not signify thoughts but certain affections of the mind. This is why Priscian says: “The modes [of verbs] are inclinations of the mind which indicate various of its affections.” Since, just as there are different affections of the mind, there are different sentences to designate them: e.g. the imperative sentence [to indicate] an order, the optative sentence [to indicate] a wish, and such like. . . . The bark of a dog signifies for us, that the dog is angry, and laughter signifies that a human is happy, and these are true or false thoughts.36

A Communicative Approach If we take a look at the mentioned conclusion again, we will have to say that P1 (Assertive sentences signify something true or something false) holds true for the speaker as well as for the hearer, whereas P2 (Non-assertive sentences signify the same as assertive sentences) is true only with regard to the hearer, so that C (Therefore, non-assertive sentences signify something true or something false) is also true only with regard to the hearer. Thus, the Albricanus strictly distinguishes between the perspective of the speaker and the hearer. Whereas Abelard divides the sentence and the corresponding thought into the components “attitude” and “content”, and thereby aims at a coherent compositional semantics of sentences, his opponent ascribes these components distributively to the speaker and the hearer: the attitude is ascribed exclusively to the speaker, the content (including the attitude in a conceptualised form) is ascribed exclusively to the hearer. The Albricanus’s position entails, then, the claim that being related to a content always requires a reflexive act of thinking.

36)

Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’, in De Rijk (1966), 47-48: ‘Similiter cum puer petit panem sibi dari, dicens “Da mihi panem!”, non ad intellectum quem habeat manifestandum, cum non intelligit se hoc velle, tali utitur voce sed potius ad illum animae affectum indicandum. Constituit tamen vox illa verum vel falsum intellectum in animo auditoris. Intelligit enim qui audit ipsum imperare panem sibi dari. Significant igitur huiusmodi orationes non intellectus sed quosdam animi affectus. Unde dicit Priscianus: ‘Modi sunt inclinationes animi, varios eius affectus indicantes.’ Sicut enim diversi sunt animi affectus, sic ad illorum designationes diversae sunt orationes: imperativa ad imperationem, optativa ad optationem, et sic de caeteris. . . . Latratus enim canis significat nobis canem iratum et risus significat hominem gaudentem esse, qui intellectus veri vel falsi sunt.’

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Accordingly, the hearer always performs reflexive acts in his or her understanding of sentences, therefore there is only one option: a complete sentence always produces a complete thought in the hearer. With regard to the speaker there are two options: he either utters an assertive sentence and thereby manifests his thought, or he utters a non-assertive sentence and thereby manifests his emotions or his will, but not a thought. In the latter case the speaker has—just like a barking dog—no access to the content of his will or affection. On this account, a human can gain this kind of access only by means of a reflexive thought, which would include the affection as part of the cognitive content, thus turning the affection into a cognitive content. In effect, the Albricanus claims—in contrast to Abelard—that every thought that is produced in the hearer of a complete sentence (be it assertive or non-assertive) is a true or false thought. Reflexivity is, then, also the decisive element for the completeness of the thought or sentence: whereas Abelard claims—indeed not unlike Searle—that completeness can be determined only by the expression of contents along with non-representational affective attitudes,37 the anonymous author explains completeness with regard to the reflexive understanding of the hearer; and a complete thought is, then, always a true or false thought. In other words: he counters Abelard’s semantics with a communicative (or even “pragmatic”) approach. On Abelard’s account, the sentences “the reading Socrates”, “Socrates reads” and “If only Socrates read!” have identical contents, they all signify that Socrates reads: the first one is incomplete and signifies without any attitude (it is—as has been explained above—not a unit in the actual use of language but rather the result of semantic analyses); the second one is complete, it signifies and expresses the content in an indicative mode (so the mental attitude is what we would call a belief, as opposed to a desire); the third one is also complete, it signifies and expresses the content in the optative mode. By contrast, the opponent claims38 that the incomplete sentence “the reading Socrates” does not signify the same as the assertive sentence, since the assertive sentence—in contrast to the incomplete sentence—signifies a complete

37) This is extensively explained in Lenz (2005). Cf. Searle (1969), 29: ‘One cannot just express a proposition [= ‘content (intellectus)’ in our terminology] while doing nothing else and have thereby performed a complete speech act. One grammatical correlate of this point is that clauses beginning with “that . . .”, which are a characteristic form for explicitly isolating propositions, are not complete sentences. When a proposition is expressed it is always expressed in the performance of an illocutionary act.’ 38) Cf. Glossae ‘doctrinae sermonum’, in De Rijk (1966), 48.

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thought, and this means on his account a true or false thought. This point becomes even more clear, if we recall how he would have to construe an optative sentence. “If only Socrates read!” is, with regard to the speaker, solely a manifestation of his desire. Yet, the hearer has the thought that the speaker wants it to be the case that Socrates reads. Consequently, the sentences “I want it to be case that Socrates reads” and “If only Socrates read!” produce the same thoughts in the hearer, and these thoughts are either true or false. If my interpretation is correct, this account blocks any way to a semantic analysis of the first order content (that Socrates reads), and, consequently, the truth or falsity would have to depend on the first-person-authority of the speaker, and could not be decided with regard to the actual states of affairs (that Socrates reads or doesn’t). But my wish (“If only Socrates read!”) does of course require that Socrates does not actually read. As has been pointed out already, these claims amount to the result that the speaker of such a sentence would have no access to the content of his or her desire. Likewise, the hearer would have no access to the “conditions of satisfaction” of the speaker’s wish, since the hearer’s understanding is always true or false, and, of course, the truth or falsity of such an understanding would depend on the first-person-authority of the speaker. Having access to the content of my desire, or, in other words, having the thought that my desire is about, would require that I form the assertive sentence “I wish Socrates to read”, since thereby I could conceptualise the affective state. By analogy, we could conclude that the speaker, in making the statement “Socrates reads”, generates the thought “He [the speaker] claims/asserts that Socrates reads” in the hearer. If this reconstruction is correct, then, according to the Albricanus, the speaker’s “direct” expressions always generate “reflexive” thoughts/statements in the hearer. To return to the introductory example: no matter whether your friend tells you “If only I had enough money!” or “I fear that I haven’t got enough money on me”, you will think “He wishes to have enough money”, but neither of you will grasp the content “that I have enough money” as such. And as the author makes clear in the case of natural signs such as a dog’s bark or a human smile, your friend might as well express his emotions or volitions through natural signs of anxiety or whatever, you will form a true or false thought—a reflexive thought, that does not only involve the supposed content of his desire but also the fact that he has the desire in relation to a content.

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Conclusions It is time to draw conclusions. Abelard’s account, which combines affective and cognitive components on the level of the sentence and thought with the aim to establish a coherent compositional semantics, has been refuted in what seems to be a peculiar way. But the position that emerged with the reconstruction of the Albricanus’s critique should not be dismissed easily. Apart from the fact that the criticisms reveal some of the weaknesses in Abelard’s position (such as Abelard’s tacit shifts from the speaker’s to the hearer’s perspective), I would like to suggest a tentative association which might be worth further consideration, although I hasten to add that the relevant terminology is absent from the Glossae “doctrinae sermonum”. The overt distinction between the speaker and the hearer is not simply a mixture of the different approaches as associated with Priscian and Boethius in the early twelfth-century Glosule. It also resembles what in later treatises on syncategoremata came to be known as an utterance per modum affectus and per modum conceptus. What I call ‘direct’ and ‘reflexive’ sentences and thoughts is mirrored in this later terminology as well as in the distinction between actus exercitus and actus significatus, which is common still in the fourteenth century and beyond.39 But perhaps it is even more significant that this suggestion might hint at the differences as to how Abelard and the Albricanus used the traditional ingredients of their accounts, and what could have been possible consequences of these. In contrast to Abelard, the Albricanus uses the reference to Priscian’s semantics of verbs (according to which its modes represent inclinations of the soul) not to account for the completeness of the sentence, but to defend the view that the speaker of a non-assertive sentence solely expresses a mental attitude (affectus). The latter position reduces the semantics of whole nonassertive sentences (with regard to the speaker) to the affective function that is expressed by verbs. But if we indeed assume that the speaker of a non-assertive sentence solely expresses the affectus without any insight into its content, this clearly threatens the principle of semantic compositionality.40 Since, for a start, the components of a sentence could certainly not mean to the speaker what they mean to the hearer. Now, Abelard would certainly have argued against this position,

39)

Cf. note 34. Jerry Fodor (see Fodor [2003], esp. 152ff.) has raised some remarkable questions about the principle of compositionality which are well applicable to the problems discussed in the texts of the Albricani. Cf. also Fodor and Lepore (2002). 40)

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since he explicitly endorsed the principle of compositionality with regard to thoughts construed as acts of understanding a sentence.41 Unfortunately, our anonymous author is less clear on this point, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that another contemporary anonymous author, who also belonged to the school of the Albricani, attacked Abelard’s view and argued in favour Alberic of Paris’s position, according to which thoughts or understandings of sentences are simple and not made up of parts—a position which overtly blocks the principle of compositionality.42 But although the Albricanus’s position might appear rather weak, one should bear in mind that we have a much smaller textual basis for the reconstruction of the position of the Albricani than for the reconstruction of Abelard’s position. The debate on compositionality was revived from the fourteenth century onwards, when authors such as William of Ockham, Adam of Wodeham, Gregory of Rimini and Pierre d’Ailly discussed the structure of mental language.43 Some of their arguments closely resemble those that were raised in the early medieval discussions. But whether or not we have evidence to show direct links between these and the late medieval debates, remains to be investigated.

41)

See e.g. Abelard (1927), 339: ‘Sunt itaque tres actiones in intellectu propositionis, intellectus scilicet partium, coniunctio vel disiunctio intellectarum rerum. Nec est incongruum, si ea actio, quae intellectus non est, sit pars intellectus totius propositionis.’ 42) See the anonymous Perihermenias-commmentary Glossae ‘Cum plura’, MS Berlin, Lat. Fol. 624, 87va-96vb, partially edited in De Rijk (1966), 39ff. The crucial passage is (89vb-90ra): ‘Nomina et verba sunt consimilia intellectui. Ex ea auctoritate probant quidam quod intellectus quidam sunt compositi, quidam simplices. Sicut voces quedam incomplexe, quedam complexe, sic intellectus illi qui significantur a dictionibus sunt simplices; qui significantur ab orationibus, sunt compositi. Magister Albericus probat nullum intellectum esse compositum. Intellectus huius orationis: ‘Socrates est homo’ non est compositus ex hoc intellectu qui significatur ab hoc nomine ‘homo’, quia cum ‘homo’ profertur, fit intellectus in anima et recedit, similiter intellectus significatus ab hoc verbo ‘est’ et hoc nomine ‘Socrates’. Et quia intellectus isti non sunt, ideo nichil ex illis fit.’ 43) Cf. Lenz (2003), 153sqq. and Lenz (2004).


www.brill.nl/viv

Res Meaning a Thing Thought: The Influence of the Ars donati Anne Grondeux CNRS-HTL, Paris

Abstract During the fourth century C.E. Donatus borrowed from the Greek tradition the idea of replacing res corporalis with res in the definition of the noun, because of the usual equivalence between pragma and res. This change had important consequences, such as a new distinction between corpus and res, as well as a new meaning proposed for the word res. This new meaning happened to be questioned by later commentators, because masters of grammar seemed to reject the Donatian distinction between corpus and res, and consider that corpus is rather included inside res, before being later accepted by Sedulius and Remigius, perhaps under the influence of the common expression res verbi. However, the word remained poly-semic in spite of Donatus’ attempt, as can be seen in the Glosulae in Priscianum (s. XII). Keywords body, thing, incorporeal, signify, thought, noun, Donatus

The following is a study about the special meaning assumed by the word res, understood exclusively as a “thing thought”. This meaning, which goes beyond its common signification of a material thing, is witnessed in grammars as early as the middle of the fourth century. To come to a clear understanding of both the origins and later developments of this statement, it would be necessary to carry out a careful examination of the parallels provided by grammars and logical texts. Nevertheless in a study with aims as limited as those adopted here one can only propose to shed some light upon a few relevant points of a theory that involves both grammatical and logical concepts, in order to clarify the relationship between the terminologies of these disciplines.1 1)

I want to thank for their reading and suggestions Irène Rosier-Catach, Brian Merrilees, as well


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217713

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Res instead of res incorporalis The Noun Signifying a Body or a “Thing” (Don. mai. II 2) As a starting point of medieval developments about this meaning of res, we find the Ars maior of Aelius Donatus (written ca 350), which provides a definition of the noun as a part of speech having a declension and meaning either a body or a “thing” (corpus aut rem) in a proper or in a common way:2 Nomen est pars orationis cum casu corpus aut rem proprie communiterve significans. Proprie ut Roma Tiberis; communiter ut urbs flumen.3

The examples which are mentioned by Donatus only partly illustrate his purpose: “Rome” and “Tiber” are proper names, “city” and “river” are common names, but only material things are here intended by these examples; this kind of limitation will be noted and criticized by later grammarians. This definition of the noun is supplemented further on when Donatus enumerates the different types of appellative nouns, providing other examples (“man”, “earth”, “sea” for the corporalia, “piety”, “justice”, “dignity” for the incorporalia); all these examples also occur in other grammatical treatises.4 However the way in which Donatus defines the meaning of the noun is quite unusual, since every other Roman grammar defines this part of speech as meaning a thing either corporeal or incorporeal (res corporalis versus res incorporalis):5 the artes which are derivative of Sacerdos’ (third century C.E.) all use the expressions res corporalis versus res incorporalis, instead of corpus versus res used by Donatus, and only one tradition refers to seeing and touching to characterize bodies; this is what we read for the first time in the Ars charisii (fourth century as Leonora Lorenzetti, who kindly let me use her transcription of the Glosulae from ms. Metz, BM 1224. 2) Note that the considerations about the meaning of nomen can be found in three places of the Roman artes: the first one is the definition of what a nomen is (1), which takes place at the beginning of the section dealing with noun; the second one comes a bit further, where grammarians enumerate the different types of nouns, starting with the appellatives (2); the third one, which does not occur in every grammar, introduces the difference between three words, nomen, appellatio and vocabulum (3). 3) Aelius Donatus, Ars maior II 2 (1981, 614: 2-3). 4) Ibid. II 2 (1981, 615: 1-2): ‘Appellativorum nominum species multae sunt. . . . Alia enim sunt corporalia, ut homo terra mare, alia incorporalia, ut pietas iustitia dignitas.’ 5) About this terminology and its juridical connotations, see Buffa (1982, 7-28) and Grondeux (2003, 35-76).


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C.E.), a Roman grammar independent from the Ars donati, which assumes a link between being corporeal and being sensible: Appellative names . . . are divided into two species, of which one signifies corporeal things, which can be seen and touched, like a human, the earth or the sea; the other signifies incorporeal things, like piety, justice and worthiness, which are perceived by the intellect alone and cannot be seen or touched.6

“Incorporeal things” are here for the very first time defined as “what cannot be seen or touched, but only perceived by the intellect”, a most important notion as concerns the definition of res for later grammarians. However, for our consideration the question is: from where did Donatus take the idea of replacing res corporalis with corpus, and res incorporalis with res? We have to remember here that res had never received this explicit meaning before in the Latin tradition: res first means a good, a possession; its second sense is a factum, actio, status, condicio, negotium (a sense witnessed in expressions such as rem gerere, agere, mandare, narrare); its third meaning consists in fact in meaning nothing, so that haec res appears to be the exact equivalent of hoc, an empty word which can be found in expressions such as res argentaria, cibaria, diuina, publica, Venerea. However, Lucretius already provides an other meaning, in the title of his book, De rerum natura: the genitive could be translated in

, suggesting that res has here the same signification as the participle ens, which has not yet been witnessed in Latin.7 However we find no mention of res meaning only something incorporeal. The Influence of the Technè? The Greek grammatical tradition provides a significant parallel with the vocabulary that is to be found in the Technè of Dionysius Thrax8 or in Apollonius Dyscolus.9 The words used at the same places of these artes by these grammarians are soma and pragma. But pragma is a word whose use in this context seems very puzzling.10 In the Stoic tradition it refers to an action or a 6)

Flavius Sosipater Charisius, Artis grammaticae libri V (1997, 193: 24 sq.). Cf. Flury (1982, 35-45). For a later statement on the same question, see Augustine, Locutiones in heptateuchum (1958, 3: 32): ‘Non hoc est “existens”, quod graecus dixit ! , sed si dici posset “essens”.’ 8) Cf. Dionysius Thrax, Technè 2 (1989, 50-51), and Buffa (1982). For the Technè, see Law and Sluiter (1998) and Law (2003). 9) The passage is known by a scholion on the Technè, cf. Lallot (1989, 128). 10) Cf. G. Nuchelmans (1973, 45 sq.); Luhtala (2000b, 110 sq.); Hadot (1980, 309-319). 7)

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passion referring to a body acting or suffering, so that it is used as an equivalent for lekton. In the Stoic ontology lekta are one of the components of the mē, what may be thought but has no self existence.11 The Stoic tradition deeply influenced Dionysius Thrax, who defines the noun (onoma) as a part of speech with declension signifying either a sōma (e.g. lithos) or a pragma (for instance paideia), whereas its Scholia all define the sōma as accessible to senses, that is, whatever can be seen or heard or touched, and the pragma as a noeton, which can only be thought. The examples provided by these Scholia are quite significant (“rhetoric”, “grammar”, “philosophy”, “god”, “reason”), as far as they all testify that a complete change occurred, starting with sōma versus pragma (a body/a process) and ending with aisthēton versus noēton (what is perceived/ what is only conceived). It is true however that pragma and res have always been understood as equivalents: for instance pragma means an event, namely a res gesta, and in grammar the word used to translate pragma is res, as witnessed by authors such as Quintilian,12 Charisius13 and Priscian.14 But here we may have the only occurrence where translating pragma with res was a rather bad idea, because pragma had somehow lost its meaning of bodily action or passion. Defining the noun as a part of speech to mean a body or a “thing” (corpus aut rem) hence appears to be an innovation of the Ars Donati, linked to the Technè written by Dionysius Thrax.15 However “res” used for the first time with this meaning by Donatus—namely a sense agreeing with the one implied by the locution res gesta—has never been understood as signifying a process expressed by a verb (pragma). Nevertheless this innovation provides a new meaning for res, now understood by grammarians as an incorporeal thing, that not only sets Donatus apart in the Roman tradition but also puts the Ars Donati somewhat far from its Stoic sources: in the same way that “education” 11)

Nuchelmans (1973, 47-55). Quintilian Institutio oratoria 3 (1975, 6: 28) already provides the equivalence ‘‘res”, id est pragmata’, cf. ThLL X 2, 7 col. 1119, 56 sq. 13) The use of res for pragma by Charisius is also relevant, for this grammarian, who teaches in Constantinople, provides an explicit equivalence between these two words, as well as " (thought, object of thought) as an equivalent of res in the same contexts, see Charisius (1997, 46: 18 and 460: 22). However, since Charisius is a compilator, his use of res sometimes proves inconsistant, see Grondeux (2003). 14) Nuchelmans (1973, 48). 15) About dating the Technè, see Lallot (1989, 19-31 (s. II a.C. for chapters 1-10, s. III p. C. for chapters 11-20); about Latin grammarians borrowing from the Greek tradition, see Law (2003, 65). 12)


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cannot be an instance of a Stoic incorporeal, one can see that the examples of virtues that will be provided by Donatus’ commentators completely disagree with the Stoic view of what an incorporeal is.16

Priscian’s Agreement and Disagreement The former approach to the problem by Priscian is to be found in the definition of the noun provided by the Institutiones grammaticae II 22 (esp. 56: 29 and 59, 10), which unquestioningly borrows from Donatus. However, one passage of his Partitiones (ad Aen. 5, 1), which were written after the Institutiones, provides a criticism of Donatus’ definition by confronting the definitions of both Donatus (corpus aut rem) and Apollonius (corporalium rerum vel incorporalium).17 One can understand this passage as meaning that res has exactly the same sense as res incorporalis, since Apollonius indeed uses pragma.18 But it seems to me that it rather has to be interpreted in an other sense, as far as Priscian intends here to disapprove of the translation pragma-res: my view is supported by another passage of the Partitiones (ad Aen. 3, 1, Postquam res Asiae . . .), a place in which Priscian explains that “although (quamvis) some grammarians (quidam grammatici) used to call the incorporeals “things”, everything indeed whether incorporeal or not can be called by the same name, namely ‘thing’”, and he provides some examples as res Asiae (Aen. 3, 1) where res is used for material goods, res publica, res familiaris, res uxoria.19 Despite this criticism, both main grammars used by scholars were supporting the idea that a noun signifies either a body or a “thing”, given that the last term is now supposed to mean an incorporeal. What will be their influence on later treatises?

Various Grammatical Meanings of res (Fifth to Ninth Centuries) Grammatical Reluctance (Commentaries on Donatus) The purpose of the early commentators on Donatus’ Ars maior is to explain the handbook in its own words, and this guiding principle applies especially 16) Cf. Bréhier (1962, 7). For the occurrence of the same question in the difference between three words, nomen, appellatio and vocabulum see Grondeux (2003). 17) Priscian, Partitiones ad Aen. 5, 1 (GL III, 480:33). Cf. Holtz (1981, 243). 18) Cf. Buffa (1982, 24). 19) Priscian, Ibid. (GL III, 475: 13).

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to the first part of the definition (nomen est pars orationis . . . ) which is explained by reference to a later passage, that is to say to the definition of the appellative noun (appellativa). Nevertheless, the terminology is borrowed from other Roman artes, from the fifth century Servius for example, who was the first to investigate and explain the definition of the noun: Now the grammarians define the corporeal and the incorporeal name in this way: the corporeal is whatever is seen and touched, like a stone, the incorporeal what is neither seen nor touched, like piety.20

Servius uses both Ps. Probus21 and grammars of Charisius’ group, in which he could find a link, between being corporeal and being perceptible on the one hand, and between being incorporeal and being imperceptible, that is invisible and untouchable, on the other hand. The same view is supported by the fifth century Pompeius’ commentary, which relies on Servius’.22 Cledonius’ commentary (also perhaps from the fifth century), which also relies on Servius’, seems however quite different, insofar as he offers an original three-part division between corporeals (which can be either seen and touched: man, earth, sea) and two sorts of incorporeals; some of them can either be seen or touched (sky, sun, air), whereas others can be neither seen nor touched (piety, justice, dignity). Cledonius intends to give an accurate commentary of what Donatus meant, an attempt which seems to be a criticism of Servius’ ambiguous definitions: The name signifies either a corporeal thing or an incorporeal one. Corporeal things are those which are touched and seen, as a human being, the earth, the sea; incorporeal things are those which are neither touched nor see, like piety, justice and worthiness.23

Nevertheless Cledonius’ terminology is identical to Charisius’, insofar as he speaks of res corporalis and res incorporalis, and not at all of corpus and res as Donatus did. From the seventh century on, the passage of Ars maior (II 2) 20) See also Servius, Commentarius in artem Donati (GL IV) 406: 29-30, as well as the passage dealing with the different types of appellative nouns (429, 15 sq.): ‘Sunt nomina corporalia, quae videmus et tangimus, ut terra lapis; sunt incorporalia, quae nec videmus nec tangimus, ut pietas iustitia’. The same topic is being dealt with by Servius, Primae expositiones Sergii de prioribus Donati grammatici urbis Romae (GL IV, 143: 16-19). For an analysis of the sentence about the philosophers and their different opinions, cf. Grondeux (2003). 21) Cf. Holtz (1981, 99 n.12). 22) Pompeius (Maurus), Commentum artis Donati (GL V, 137: 24-29). 23) Cledonius, Ars grammatica (GL V, 34: 26).


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quoted above provided the commentators with the opportunity to elaborate on what Donatus meant when saying corpus aut rem. This new point of view is relevant for our consideration, since commenting on Ars maior II 2 now implies a careful study of each word of Donatus’ definition of the noun: commentators have now to explain what a “body” is and what a “thing” is. This new approach to the text first occurs in the anonymous grammar known as Ars Ambrosiana (first half of the seventh century): Now a body is said to be whatever is touched and seen, . . . A thing however is whatever is neither seen nor touched; thing (res) from the verb, as others <say>, ‘I think’ (reor), which is of the mind. But not every body can be a thing.24

Although almost all commentators give a rather accurate definition of a body (what can be seen and touched, or what can be seen or touched), they hardly provide the same kind of definition for a “thing”. Indeed they are not satisfied with the new grammatical meaning of “res”; this is what we can read in the commentaries written by masters such as Julian of Toledo (680-90),25 Tatwine (eighth century) or Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (ninth century): they all prefer to use the old expression of res incorporalis instead of res when commenting on the word corpus of the Ars Donati in the definition of body as what can be seen and/or touched. For instance, Tatwine provides a tripartite distinction between corpus, corporale and incorporale: bodies are what can be touched and seen (tangi et videri), corporeals are what can be either touched or seen (tangi et non videri vel videri et non tangi), and incorporeals what can be neither touched nor seen (nec tangi nec videri).26 Only two exceptions can be pointed out, and the first of these is the Ars Ambrosiana, quoted above. This treatise indicates the fact that not any “body” can be a “thing”, which may be a misreading for the common sentence that “not any ‘thing’ can be a ‘body’” (see below). The second exception is provided by Erchanbert (a master of grammar whose identification with bishop Erchanbert of Freising has now been rejected): “Rem intelligimus quorum substantia

24)

Löfstedt, Ars Ambrosiana, Commentum anonymum in Donati partes maiores (1982, 6: 26-29). Iulianus Toletanus, Ars grammatica, poetica, rhetorica 1, 1, 14 (1973, 12: 67): ‘Quare dixit: corpus aut rem? Quia aut corporale erit ipsud nomen aut incorporale. Quid est corporale? Quod videtur et tangitur, ut homo terra mare. Quid est incorporale? Quod nec videtur nec tangitur, sed tantummodo in animo geritur, ut pietas iustitia dignitas.’ 26) Tatuinus, Ars grammatica I, 25 (1968). See also a bit further at 1, 93-95 the distinction between nouns meaning vel corpus vel corporalitatem and nouns meaning incorporalitatem. 25)

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propria corporalibus oculis nequaquam cerni potest, sicut est sapientia, pietas, aliarumque virtutum (-tem ed.) vel vitiorum nomina.”27 What has been quoted here is the only definition of res as an incorporeal which can be found in grammars based on Donatus. Masters of grammar seem to disagree with this passage of the ars, and almost all of them reject the Donatian distinction between corpus and res because they consider that corpus is rather included inside res. This is a point deserving the most serious consideration, because it shows the influence of ancient grammars, such as Charisius’ and its group, and also Priscian’s Partitiones. The Ars Ambrosiana seems to be the first commentary to challenge Donatus’ definition by drawing attention to the fact that Donatus could have said “rem significans” instead of “corpus aut rem significans” (a remark which seems to confirm the correction to the misreading that has been suggested above); it nevertheless tries to find a justification for the definition provided by Donatus, alluding to Marius Victorinus28 to make clear that Donatus’ form might be illogical but more convenient.29 A later anonymous treatise known as the Anonymous ad Cuimnanum also questions the distinction provided by Donatus and answers quite clearly: a body is always a thing, but a thing is not always a body, because “thing” (res) includes everything, corporeal or not,30 and this is what can be read in the mid-VIIIth c. anonymous grammar.31 Since Carolingian masters give no reason for their reluctance to explain and use res with the same meaning as Donatus, we can only guess why this meaning proved to be so difficult for them to accept. We have already mentioned Charisius and Priscian’s Partitiones, which both offer the distinction res corporalis versus res incorporalis, using a different and traditional terminology. But Augustine and Boethius should be mentioned too, because of their very different definitions. Augustine’s system as described in De dialectica V implies four terms, verbum, dicibile, dictio, res, and provides the following definition for res, which however is never quoted in this context: “Res est quidquid vel sentitur vel intellegitur vel latet”; and on the other hand Boethius gives the well known tripartite division resintellectus-vox. Hence the use of res for Greek pragma provided by Donatus may have seemed up to date at the moment when he wrote his Ars maior;

27) 28) 29) 30) 31)

Erchanbert, Erchanberti Frisingensis tractatus super Donatum (1948, 8, 2 sq.). Marius Victorinus, De definitionibus (1888, 7-8). Ars Ambrosiana (1982, l: 30 sq.). Anonymous ad Cuimnanum (1992, 3: 43). Ars preserved in the ms. Bern, Bürgerbibl. 522 (GL VIII, xlii-xliii).


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nevertheless it quickly became old-fashioned when new frameworks appeared, involving a change of place for res, which was no more supposed to mean a thing thought, but just a thing, no matter what it was, corporeal or not. Although this chronological argument is difficult either to prove or to disprove, it is noteworthy that Papias contrasts the different meanings of the word res, emphasizing that only grammarians use it with the sense of “incorporeal”; this grammatical definition is explicitly compared with the definition provided by Augustine in his Dialectica and with another found in Isidorus’ Origines (V 25, 2: Res sunt quae in nostro iure consistunt).32 Carolingian masters seem to be much more interested in two different questions: the definition of the body (somehow in close relationship with eucharistic problems) and also the incorporeals which can have a proper name. A detailed analysis of the different points of view would be quite lengthy here, but the theories touching on the last question can be summed up as follows: the grammarians commenting on Donatus on this point all depend on Priscian, who gives some examples of what a res with a proper name could be, whether a goddess (such as Pudicitia) or a science set forth by a famous master ( grammatica Aristarchi for instance). These two possibilities are developed and illustrated by Carolingian masters, who offer new interpretations of Donatus’ definition, especially by introducing the names of the angels (Michael, Gabriel and so on) in order to replace the pagan gods. I only mention this Carolingian discussion to make clear the radical change which will take place at the time of the Glosulae, which are not interested at all in this sort of question.

Res as Distinct from corpus (Commentaries on Both Donatus and Priscian) During the ninth century, two grammarians defend Donatus’ point of view, asserting that the true meaning of res is res incorporalis, and that when we call res a material thing, we indeed misuse the term. It is relevant that both

32) Cf. Hamesse (1982, 101-2) for the detailed analysis of Papias’ and Giovanni Balbi’s definitions (‘Proprie quidem res sunt quas solas estimatione et intellectu comprehendimus ut incorporeae . . .; quodlibet ens, unum de transcendentibus . . .; quae in nostro iure consistunt’); Osbern of Gloucester, Derivationes (1996, R XV 16): ‘Item a reor . . . hec res, rei’; Firmini Verris Dictionarius/ Dictionnaire latin-français de Firmin Le Ver (1994, 430b24-26): ‘Res . . . idest la chose—res est quicquid vel sentitur vel intelligitur vel latet; res sunt que in nostro iure consistunt’; Dictionarius familiaris et compendiosus. Dictionnaire latin-français de Guillaume Le Tailleur (2002, 335a2527): ‘Res . . . secundum Papiam .i. quicquid vel sentitur vel intelligitur vel latet; res sunt que in nostro iure consistunt’.

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Sedulius33 and Remigius,34 the latter probably depending on the former or on the same Irish sources, provide the same criticism of Priscian’s Partitiones ad Aen. 3, 1 (res Asiae), asserting that res (proprie) incorporalis est. Commenting on Donatus’ Ars maior, Sedulius looks very different from earlier commentators: his definition of corpus for instance emphasizes the etymology (the body is hence described as a jail for the heart, cor-pus,35 or as something which can become rotten, corpus-corruptio), but does no longer insist on what a (touchable or visible) body is.36 But Sedulius Scotus is also one of the first commentators on Priscianus’ Institutiones grammaticae,37 and as such his commentary on IG II 22 needs to be discussed. Sedulius avoids introducing in his statement the definition of res found in his commentary on Donatus. He provides the same kind of examples that have always been used for the res incorporales (cum “iustitiam”, “dilectionem”, “colorem”, “formam” ceteraque accedentia nomino), but this does not diminish the obscurity surrounding this question. Later in the text he makes no further mention of the distinction between corpus and res, and his commentary on Priscian looks very Porphyrian (see the terminology: definitio, species, differentia). It may be worthwhile to investigate the explanation provided by Sedulius for each term involved in the definition of the noun, substantia and qualitas, in that Sedulius gives essentia as an equivalent for the first one and accidens for the second one, which is close to the solution which will be proposed by the Glosulae two centuries later.38 Sedulius here argues that the property of the name only depends on its quality, namely that the noun has not been invented to signify substances but qualities, and that here is to be found the difference between noun and pronoun.39 It is interesting to contrast his commentary with one that has been attributed to John Scotus Eriugena, who rejects the distinction between res and corpus, emphasizing that a body is indeed a thing.40 33)

Sedulius Scotus, In Donati artem maiorem 2 (1977, 66). Remigius Autissiodorensis, Commentum Einsidlense in Donati artem minorem 16 (1912, 11). 35) Cf. Grondeux and Jeudy (2001, 139-160). 36) However one should notice that a later master called Israel had an other opinion, relying on Augustine’s, about what a res is: “Dicitur autem res secundum Israhelem quicquid sentitur vel intelligitur vel latet (= Aug. dialect. 5). Sentiuntur corporalia; spiritalia intelliguntur; latet vero deus et informis materia”; Jeudy (1977, 754). 37) Sedulius, In Priscianum (1977). 38) Sedulius, In Priscianum (1977, 78: 62 sq.). 39) Sedulius, In Priscianum (1977, p. 79: 86 sq.). 40) Cf. Luhtala (2000a, 115-88, ad II 22 p. 157): Omne quod est aut corpus aut res est. RES dico incorporales creaturas. In usu namque latinae linguae omnia sensiblia et visibilia corpora dicuntur. 34)


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Later Meanings of res (Eleven to Twelfth Centuries) When the Ars maior almost disappears from the classroom, scholars still read Priscian’s Institutiones where they can find the same kind of distinction between corpus and res. But they no longer have access to the traditional set of examples provided by earlier grammars (pietas, and so on), which Sedulius still knew. New Sorts of res (incorporales) The first consequence of the disappearance of Donatus’ Ars maior is that the definition of the noun (IG II 22) proves difficult for the Glosulae to comment on, since nobody seems to remember what grammatical incorporeals were: A name is either proper or appellative. (G1) Moreover (om. KI ) it divides substance into (om. KI ) corporeal and incorporeal. ‘Thing’ is what incorporeal substances and all things in the categories other than substance are called, ‘bodies’ are what these visible things that are subject to the corporeal senses are called. (G2). Or ‘bodies’ is what all substantial things are called, ‘things’ is what all accidental things are called.41

The anonymous authors of the Glosulae are not sure whether corpora and res should be explained in a Porphyrian or in an Aristotelian framework. The first assumption here seems to refer to Porphyry’s tree, while the second one seems to be connected with the Categories, the latter not very different from the former. But grammatical incorporeals have now utterly disappeared, and that they have been replaced by others (see below). The second consequence is that commentaries on Priscian rely on the terminology used by Boethius translating Porphyry’s Isagoge. Hence they no longer need old-fashioned examples of incorporeals (pietas . . .) since words such as communem qualitatem immediately draw their attention to universals;42 or when Priscian provides “homo” as an instance of a common name,

Quae autem solo intellectu noscuntur RES appellantur. Itaque ideo etiam corpora RES appellari possunt. Omnis ergo creatura generaliter REI nomine appellari potest. Omnis erga creatura RES dicitur, non autem omnis RES corpus. 41) Glosulae ad II 22 (Köln, Dombibl. 201, s. XII = K 14ra; Metz, Bibl. Mun. 1224, s. XII = M 19vb; Incunable edition apud Georgius Arrivabenus, Venezia, 1488 = I 26r). 42) See Glosulae ad II 22 (M 20a): ‘Sequiturque pars distribuit . . . Sensus est: nomen significat rem subiectam vel similem aliis per aliquam communem qualitatem, velut ‘homo’ significat plures consimiles et unitos in eiusdem convenientia qualitatis, scilicet rationalitatis et mortalitatis . . .’.

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they immediately think of another “homo”, namely the species incorporalis, with special attention to the divine ideas mentioned in IG XVII 44.43 At least they all seem to appreciate the idea that incorporalia are always called res.44 The third consequence is that it is again unclear whether corpus is separated from res or not. Res still has a large scope, so that some authors cannot avoid using it inside its own definition (cf. G1: “res” vocat . . . omnes res (!) aliorum praedicamentorum ; G2: corpora vocat omnes res substantiales, res omnes [sc. res!] accidentales; but compare G1 ista visibilia not *res visibiles). Res indeed still means res intelligibilis, res incorporalis, res incorporea and at the same time any sort of thing. It even seems to have a much larger scope than before, as far as it may sometime comprise the ten categories (since G2 provides a division of res between res substantiales and res accidentales). But contrasting this set of definitions with the commentary on IG II 18 (Proprium est nominis . . .) appears as quite puzzling because praedicamenta 2 to 10 seem to play the same part beside qualitas instead of res.45 The Glosulae say that both substantia and qualitas are not those of the Categories: substantia has to be understood as essentia, while qualitas has to be taken largely as if it were any accident,46 which constitutes a proper or common quality. This rewriting of the Priscianic definition intends to make clear that substantia (IG II 18) (= essentia =) corpus + res (IG II 22). But we have to remember that Glosulae ad II 22 also suggest a division of res into res substantialis (corpus) and res accidentalis (res), which provides a new meaning for res, namely essentia. What happens indeed is that the species (e.g. homo), which can be called a res, since it is an incorporeal, contains individuals, which are called (see Priscian IG II 22) corpora. A Polysemic Word As mentioned above, the word has remained polysemic in spite of Donatus’ effort. Res (incorporea) is for instance used to mean the proprietas (or communio) which is the quality, proper or common, namely the reason of the invention of the name:

43)

Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae XVII 44 (GL II, 130: 11). See for instance William of Conches’ Glosae in Priscianum (1981, 36 ad II 22): Iterum substantia dividit in duo, in corpus et rem. Corpus vocat omne corporeum sive verum sive fictum, rem vero vocat incorpoream substantiam, quia retur, id est existimatur, non corporeo sensu percipitur. 45) Glosulae ad II 18 (K, f.13rab; I, f. 24v-25r; M 18rb-va). 46) See also Sedulius, In Priscianum (1977, 78). 44)


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If someone should ask about whiteness, since it is an appellative, what (om. KI ) common property it designates, we say that it signifies an incorporeal thing in that it is clear and (I ] which KM ) is the opposite of black; and similarly the properties are in all others (inu. I ), although they are not subject to human cognition.47

Moreover, the polysemy of res can be observed in another passage of the Glosulae, in which the commentator intends to investigate whether homo meaning the species and not the individuals has to be considered as a common or a proper name; in this section one can see that res successively signifies the perceptible object (R1) which the impositor nominis had before him while giving the name homo for the very first time, and the other homines that an animus rationalis will be able to see and compare afterward (R1’); then it means the common and incorporeal property (R2) that this animus rationalis can conceive because of the similitudo existing between (R1’); note that this animus rationalis conceives this res (R2) as almost (quasi) existing by itself as if in the natura rerum (R3), namely as beings (R3) are.48 The polysemy of the word res clearly appears three centuries later in a commentary on the Graecismus. The anonymous author here comments on verses XII 327-330, which explain that res has to be said about invisible things, because of its etymology (reor), and that visible things are called bodies, given that any body is a thing. Commenting on these verses which only recall an old question without providing any answer, the anonymous author also brings up various opinions without trying to make their coherence clear. 1) Res is said in a proper way about something that cannot be seen; 2) any body is a thing, but any thing is not a body; 3) Res is said in a proper way de rebus intelligibilibus because of its etymology (res a reor); however it happens to mean a corporeal thing, as we say “give me my thing” speaking of a book; 4) different meanings of corpus; 5) various meanings of res with justification provided by poetic, logical and patristic quotations; 6) other meanings of res provided by three differential verses.49 When Donatus borrowed from the Greek tradition the idea of replacing res corporalis with res, he may have been misled by the usual equivalence between pragma and res. The consequence of this was a new meaning proposed for res, which was questioned by many commentators before being later accepted by Sedulius and Remigius, perhaps under the influence of the common expression

47) 48) 49)

Glosulae (K f. 15ra, M 21rb, I f. 27v). See Glosulae (K 14rb-va, M 20rb). Ad Graec. XII 327-330 ms. Paris, BnF lat. 14746 f. 117rb (XVee s.).

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res verbi. This brief study should be supplemented in three directions. First, res is at the same moment the object of an important controversy about the persons of Trinity (three res or three nescio quid ), hence it would be interesting to check out the relationship between the terminology of this controversy and the uses of res that have been exposed here. Second, they could be compared with the way Abelard uses the word.50 Finally it would be interesting to contrast the logical use of the word with the technical use made by later metaphysicians, whose roots are likely to be found in the grammatical and logical use, as suggest the common etymology res a reor, res a ratus.51

50)

Cf. Jolivet (1975, 531-545). Bonaventure I 25, 3 p. 446b: ‘Res enim dicitur a reor, reris, quod dicit actum a parte animae.’ See also ibid. II 37, 1, p. 876a. Alexander Hales, Glossa in quatuor libros sententiarum P. Lombardi 1 (1951, 332): ‘Res dicitur ut se ipso ens; res enim dicitur ut ens ratum.’ Quoted by Hamesse (1982, 91-104). 51)


www.brill.nl/viv

The Logic of Being: Eriugena’s Dialectical Ontology Christophe Erismann University of Cambridge

Abstract In his major work, the Periphyseon, the ninth century Latin philosopher John Scottus Eriugena gives, with the help of what he calls “dialectic”, a rational analysis of reality. According to him, dialectic is a science which pertains both to language and reality. Eriugena grounds this position in a realist ontological exegesis of the Aristotelian categories, which are conceived as categories of being. His interpretation tends to transform logical patterns, such as Porphyry’s Tree or the doctrine of the categories, into a structure which is both ontological and logical, and to use them as tools for the analysis of the sensible world. The combination of dialectic interpreted as a science of being, capable of expressing truths about the sensible world as well as about discourse, with an ontological interpretation of logical concepts allows Eriugena to develop his metaphysical theory, a strong realism. Eriugena not only supports a theological realism (of divine ideas), but also, and principally, an ontological realism, the assertion of the immanent existence of forms. Eriugena claims that genera and species really subsist in the individuals: they are completely and simultaneously present in each of the entities which belong to them. Keywords Eriugena, categories, universals, realism

The ninth century Irish philosopher John Scottus Eriugena1 provides one of the rare medieval examples of a Neoplatonic approach to logic.2 His 1)

Eriugena was the translator into Latin of several works by late Greek Neoplatonic authors (Maximus the Confessor and Pseudo-Dionysius). As a master of Liberal Arts in the Palatine school, he was also engaged in the study of grammar and logic. 2) On the existence, during the Middle Ages, of a Neoplatonic tradition in logic, see De Libera (1981). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217722

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C. Erismann / Vivarium 45 (2007) 203-218

philosophical project is inherited from Greek Neoplatonic scholasticism in several respects. First, John assumes the legacy of Porphyry—the incorporation of the Aristotelian doctrine of the categories3 into Neoplatonic metaphysics. Secondly, his method is essentially syncretic: Eriugena fits wholly into the Neoplatonic exegetical project of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle’s doctrines.4 Before Eriugena, Boethius—in his commentary to the De interpretatione 5— had already stated his intention to Aristotelis Platonisque sententias in unam revocare concordiam. Thirdly, Eriugena sees dialectic as an inquiry which is ontological,6 far more than linguistic, in nature, and which deals with the nature of things and their principles, with the order and structure of reality. In this, he agrees with the Neoplatonic criticisms addressed to Aristotle by Plotinus and Proclus among others, who accuse Aristotle of ‘reducing’ dialectic to a science restricted to language and reasoning. Fourthly, the two main texts on which Eriugena based himself in constructing his dialectical ontology depend on the Aristotelian doctrine of categories, but have a Neoplatonic background which affects their content. These texts are, on the one hand, the Categoriae decem 7—a paraphrase of the Categories originating from the circle of Themistius—and on the other hand, Porphyry’s Introduction (Isagoge) to the Categories. In line with Porphyry’s exegetical project, the Isagoge follows an Aristotelian methodology. None the less, it does convey the conceptual elements which allow some medieval philosophers to construct an ontology different from that of the Categories.8 Early medieval Aristotelianism is conceived against a Platonic background. Eriugena’s thought is also affected by the more general intellectual circumstances of the early Latin Middle Ages,9 in particular by the relatively small

3)

The attempt mentioned in Periphyseon 469AB to subsume the ten categories under two other, even higher, genera (motus and situs) is illustrative of Eriugena’s relation to the Platonic tradition. 4) On the Neoplatonic project of harmonisation of Plato and Aristotle, see Karamanolis (2006). 5) Boethius (1880), 79:9-80:9. See Zambon (2003). 6) Cf Samstag (1929), 8: ‘Die Dialektik ist die philosophische Grundwissenschaft oder Seinslehre und die ontologische Methode des Johannes, der damit seine Zugehörigkeit zum Platonismus sehr entschieden zu erkennen gibt’. 7) On Eriugena and the Categoriae decem, see Marenbon (1980). 8) On the presence of Neoplatonic elements in the Isagoge and their use by Eriugena, see Erismann (2004). 9) For remarks on the way in which the availability of texts can determine the understanding of metaphysics, see De Libera (1999b). On the peculiarity of early medieval metaphysical thought in this respect, see Erismann (2005).


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number of philosophical works available.10 Philosophical thought was principally centred on the Categories and the Isagoge. This observation applies particularly to what may be called ‘ontology’: the rational inquiry into the nature, structure and order of the different entities that make up the world. During a period in which Aristotle’s Metaphysics could not be read, nor could Plato’s dialogues such as the Republic or the Parmenides, the absence of texts strictly devoted to metaphysical issues led philosophers to look elsewhere in order to find appropriate conceptual tools. They found them in the texts of the Logica vetus. This led the authors of this period to build their metaphysical thought by using concepts which had originally been intended for the analysis of predication and other logical purposes. This point about the history of texts is useful for understanding our problem. The Neoplatonic notion of dialectic is based on the idea that dialectic is a science whose subject is primarily natural things and their principles. But the conjunction of the two factors—the absence of strictly metaphysical texts and the presence merely of writings, the Categories and the Isagoge, which are indeterminate as to their subject (things or words)—was probably responsible for the lack of strict demarcation, in the thought of several early medieval thinkers, between logic, philosophy of language and ontology. Such an absence makes it much easier to think that dialectic has ontological implications and that the texts of the Logica vetus should be interpreted as teachings about things, and not only about words. These are, as we shall see, the two pillars of Eriugena’s ontological project. The reading of the Logica vetus given by Eriugena tends to transform logical patterns, such as Porphyry’s Tree or the doctrine of the categories, into a structure that is ontological as well as logical, and to use them as tools for the analysis of the sensible world. This use is not the result of an accidental corruption, but rather that of a reasoned, rational and philosophical approach based on an understanding of dialectic as ontological in nature. Such a use, in ontological reasoning, of notions imported from the field of logic, embodies an original approach to metaphysics.

Eriugena’s Philosophical Project: A Dialectical Ontology In the Periphyseon, Eriugena offers a rational analysis of the structure of the world, its origin and development. The world is understood according to a

10)

The only ancient philosophical works available were the fragment of the Timaeus translated by Calcidius, the different parts of the Logica vetus, i.e. principally the Categories (or the paraphrase

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Neoplatonic causal scheme,11 and is analysed according to its relation to its creator, first remaining in him in a state of perfection, then proceeding, and finally converting into him again. This paradigm was clearly formulated by Proclus in axiom 35 of his Elements of Theology: ‘Every effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it and reverts upon it’. The application of this scheme by Eriugena leads to the following result: the moment in which the created world remains in God corresponds to the intelligible creation of the world in the form of primordial causes or divine ideas; it is the natura creata et creans. Then comes the procession into the sensible world, the moment of the realisation of the division into genera and species: this is the domain to which the categories apply. At this moment, each entity is determined by space and time. The last stage is that of the return to the creator, the synthesis. I shall focus on the result of procession, the sensible world as we experience it. The ontology of the sensible world put forward by Eriugena is the philosophical centre of his doctrine. His ontology can be called dialectical for two reasons. First, the sensible world is the domain to which the categories apply, that of the division into genera and species. The entire discussion of the problem of the categories is concerned with excluding God, and the primordial causes, from the scope of the categories and predicables; God is not a substance, nor a genus.12 Eriugena limits the scope of the categories to sensible realities alone, as can be seen from his inquiry into praedicatio in divinis.13 This point establishes a similarity between him and Plotinus, whose intention in the treatises 42-44 on the genera of being (Enneads VI,1, 2 and 3) was to show that the Aristotelian categories do not take into account the intelligible realities. Categoriae decem), Porphyry’s Isagoge, the De interpretatione, and Boethius’ works (Opuscula Sacra, Consolatio and some logical commentaries and monographs). 11) This point highlights Eriugena’s ‘Platonism’. He is in line with the Greek Neoplatonic thinkers who understood the structure of reality, in the words of Gersh (1978), 125, as a ‘continuous series of causes and effects in which each term is related dynamically to the previous one; it “remains” in its prior (manifests an element of identity with it), it “proceeds” (manifests an element of difference), and it “reverts” (strives to re-establish the identity)’. 12) Cf Eriugena, Periphyseon 463C [I, 33: 919]: ‘Deus autem nec genus nec species est’; and 589A [II, 87: 2054-2056]: ‘Similiter neque genus est neque forma neque species neque numerus neque OYCIA siue generalissima siue specialissima subsistit’. Passages from the Periphyseon are quoted from the edition of E. Jeauneau. All references are to the Patrologia Latina and, in brackets, to the edition of CCCM [volume, page: lines]. 13) Periphyseon book I; e.g. 463B [I, 33: 903-905]: ‘dum ad theologiam (hoc est ad diuinae essentiae inuestigationem) peruenitur, kategoriarum uirtus omnino extinguitur’ and 463C [I, 33: 916-920]: ‘Clare conspicio nulla ratione kategorias de natura ineffabili proprie posse praedicari [. . .]. Nulla igitur kategoria proprie deum significare potest’.


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The second reason lies in the fact that Eriugena’s ontology is based on the categories understood in a Porphyrian way, as the principles of multiplicity,14 and on the division of substance known as Porphyry’s Tree (Isagoge 4: 21-25 and 5: 1-5). The result of Eriugena’s syncretism is that the categories apply to the sensible world and are integrated into a wider metaphysics. Eriugena gives an analysis of the sensible world, in which universals and particulars, general and particular entities, are combined in a hierarchy that runs from the unique genus generalissimum down to the multiplicity of individuals—the individuals being understood, following Porphyry (Isagoge 6: 19-24), as the numerical multiplication of a unique and common specific essence. Eriugena’s masterpiece is based on the identification of the dialectical process of diuisio or diairetike with the ontological process of processio or proodos.15 As a result, the logical operation of division corresponds exactly to the ontological procession, that is, to the movement of creation of the world. The logical division of ousia into genera, species, and individuals,16 and the arrangement into categories (among which space and time) are the determinations of the sensible world. Dialectic has two natures: it is an internal rule of reality, or law of nature, and a paradigm for correct reasoning. The correctness of dialectical reasoning is guaranteed by its ontological foundation. Dialectic as a means of human reasoning is truth-attaining because the human mind recreates a movement of division or synthesis which is present in things.17 Eriugena’s ontology of the sensible world has two main foundations: on the one hand, the Neoplatonic understanding of dialectic, confirmed by Augustine, and on the other, the realist interpretation of the Categoriae decem—the text through which Eriugena knew the doctrine of the categories—and of Porphyry’s Isagoge. Before pursuing these issues further, it may be useful to explain what is meant by a Neoplatonic understanding of dialectic, and to outline the ways through which Eriugena came to be in contact with such a doctrine.

14)

See Isagoge 5: 9-12 (1966 11: 1) where the genus generalissimum is said to be a supremum et primum principium. 15) This idea of assimilating the logical division to the ontological procession is typically Neoplatonic. The first occurrence is probably Iamblichus (quoted in the Scholia Platonica (ad Soph. 216A): “The diairetike imitates the procession from the One”; see Bechtle (2002), 175-218. This idea is developed by Proclus (Theol. Plat. I 9); see Lloyd (1982), 22-23. 16) See Moran (1989), 139: ‘Dialectic is not just how the mind proceeds, it is also the way the hierarchy of reality itself is ordered’. 17) See Beierwaltes (1986), 220-1: ‘Being therefore possesses a dialectical structure that can be adequately translated into dialectic as a methodology’.

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Eriugena’s approach can be understood as a return to a Platonic notion of dialectic, conceived as the science which allows an inquiry into the ontological structure of reality. Aristotle reduced the ambitions of Plato’s conception of dialectic, bringing it back to a science of discourse and reasoning. But Neoplatonic authors such as Proclus—the main inspiration of Eriugena’s Greek sources—tried to give back to dialectic its ontological scope. Proclus defends an ‘objective’ dialectic, by means of which he tries to explain how the one passes into the multiple. The subject of dialectic is the study—in things and in thought—of the emanation (proodos) of all reality from a unique principle. Besides Pseudo-Dionysius, the author who was instrumental in the transmission of the Neoplatonic conception of dialectic is evidently Maximus the Confessor, whom Eriugena read and whose Ambigua and Quaestiones ad Thalassium he translated into Latin.18 Through his work, Eriugena came into contact with the Greek Neoplatonic notion of dialectic. Maximus’ Ambigua19 transmits Porphyry’s logical or ontological ladder, which goes from the genus generalissimum right down to the species specialissimae through the general genera, and the fundamental idea of division as a natural progression. Augustine’s De doctrina christiana provides a theological framework which facilitates Eriugena’s passage from logic to ontology; according to Augustine, logic is truth-giving because it reflects the divine order found in things. At least in the first part of his works, Augustine develops an understanding of the truth of logic and of dialectic, which is based on their correspondence to the divine order of things. Far from being human inventions, they are the knowledge of the rational structure which God has inscribed in the midst of creation. Augustine develops the theme of the divine origin of dialectic that was already present in Plato’s Philebus (16CD), and gives it a Christian tone. The rules of dialectic, according to Augustine, do not lie in an exterior revelation, like that of the Scriptures, nor are they invented by man; they appear in the nature of things, following the order decided by God for the world.20 For Augustine, the liberal arts were not invented or instituted by man on the basis of a convention, but reflect the order of things established by God according to an eternal and immutable reason. Such a doctrine has obvious consequences 18)

On Eriugena and Maximus on the Categories, see Kavanagh (2005). See for example Maximus, Ambigua 1177 (1988, 92: 1389-1396). 20) Augustine, De doctrina christiana II, XXXII, 50: ‘Ipsa tamen ueritas conexionum non instituta, sed animaduersa est ab hominibus et notata, ut eam possint uel discere uel docere; nam est in rerum ratione perpetua et diuinitus instituta’; XXXV, 53: ‘Item scientia definiendi, diuidendi atque partiendi, quamquam etiam rebus falsis plerumque adhibeatur, ipsa tamen falsa non est neque ab hominibus instituta, sed in rerum ratione comperta’. See D’Onofrio (1986a), 51. 19)


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for our problem. If dialectic is not a human construct, but an inquiry into the internal rationality of reality, its subject necessarily lies outside the framework of speech; dialectic pertains to things themselves.21 This is one of the textual foundations for the status which Eriugena gives to dialectic—that of a law of nature.

Eriugena’s Understanding of Dialectic Following Augustine, Eriugena gives a special status and origin to dialectic. This passage from the Periphyseon summarizes Eriugena’s thought particularly well: [. . .] that art which divides the genera into species and resolves the species into genera, which is called dialectic did not arise from human contrivance, but was first implanted in the nature of things (in natura rerum) by the originator of all the arts that are properly so called, and was discovered by the wise who make use of it in their subtle investigations of reality.22

Two things are immediately noticeable: the foundations of dialectic must not be sought in discourse or in concepts but in the nature of things. Dialectic has not been invented nor artificially developed, but has been discovered through a close study of reality. Likewise, its scope is not limited to discourse but pertains more fundamentally to the make-up of things. Thus, in a Neoplatonic way, Eriugena holds that dialectic, whose role is to combine and distinguish the natures of existing knowable things, and to give to each thing its definition, allows a true theoretical inquiry of things (uera rerum contemplatio).23 Dialectic is called ‘ratio discretionis naturarum’ (481B) and ‘doctrina cognitionis et diiudicationis naturarum’ (827A). The word ‘natura’ is sometimes used by Eriugena—as in this case—to mean the state of creatures submitted to spatiotemporal categories. Dialectic deals with the categories and their subdivisions into genera and species: ‘it is the function of that part of philosophy which is called dialectic to break down these genera [i.e. the ten categories] into their subdivisions from the most general to the most specific, and to 21)

Note the interference between Augustinian texts as to their interpretation: the reading of the De doctrina christiana probably influenced the understanding of the other treatise ascribed during the Middle Ages to Augustine, the Categoriae decem. 22) Periphyseon 749A [IV, 12: 284-288]. English translations of the Periphyseon are originally by Sheldon-Williams, in O’Meara (1987), but have been frequently modified. 23) Periphyseon 486B [I, 62: 1879-1883].

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collect them together again from the most specific to the most general’.24 These categories are categories of what is, categories of being in the strong sense of the word. Eriugena ‘raises the notion of dialectic from the simple level of a scientia sermocinalis to that of an ontological inquiry’ (D’Onofrio 1986b, 239). Far from producing arbitrary patterns of thought, dialectic is, according to Eriugena, an art which can be discovered in the nature of things. It is not only a logical operation, but also the reflection of a natural process. Eriugena expresses this idea in a remarkably powerful phrase—the naturalis ratio which governs dialectic is nothing but the rerum necessitas (917A).25 Etienne Gilson (1942, 207) understood this clearly: ‘division and analysis are not simply abstract methods of arranging and disarranging ideas, but are the law of being itself. The universe is a vast dialectic ruled by an internal method.’ Through its method of division and analysis—the logical classification and ontological hierarchy of existing beings as species and genera—dialectic follows the ordered and hierarchical structure of reality. The ontological ordering of beings into genera, species and individuals is not an artificial conjecture of the human mind, but a transposition of the structure of reality: the logical and ontological classifications are similar and express an identical reality. Eriugena often insists on the natural character of dialectical movements— on division as a process. Far from being the result of human intellectual activity, these movements are the work of nature and belong not to the logical, but to the ontological order: [. . .] if someone, by exercising reason in accordance with that art which is called analytike, unites the individuals into their species and the species into their genera and the genera into OUSIA by gathering them together, they are said to suffer. It is not because he himself gathers them, for they are gathered, as also they are divided, by nature; but because he seems to gather them by an act of his reason. And similarly, when he divides them, he is said to act, and they to suffer.26

Thus division, whose ontological nature is clear for Eriugena, is studied by physics, a science between theology and ethics, which is ‘the science of natures which pertain to the senses and to the intellect’ (629B). The relation between

24)

Periphyseon 463B [I, 32: 900-33: 902]. Probably a resurgence of Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio (201B-204A); see Gregory (1977). 26) Periphyseon 472B [I, 44: 1283-1288]. 25)


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dialectic and the structure of the sensible world, as well as the background of Porphyry’s Tree and of the five predicables, are obvious: But science is the power by which the contemplative mind, whether human or angelic, discourses on the nature of the things which proceed from the primordial causes through generation and which are divided into genera and species by means of differences and properties, whether it is susceptible to accidents or without them, whether joined to bodies or altogether free from them, whether it is distributed over places and times or, outside places and times, is unified and inseparable by reason of its simplicity; and this species of reason is called physics.27

According to Eriugena, the objectivity and correctness of the process of dialectic is thus guaranteed: when man uses dialectical instruments for analysing the structure of reality, he does so basing himself on a dialectic inscribed in the nature of things. Once the scope of dialectic is specified, it is possible to explain its two different aspects. In his commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy of PseudoDionysius, Eriugena establishes that dialectic is subdivided into diairetike, which divides the highest genera down to the individuals and analytike, which brings the individuals together into the unity of the superior genera.28 Dialectic as the ‘science of the distinction of genera and species’ begins always with division.29 This is a postulate which both Porphyry and Boethius trace back to Plato.30 For a philosopher who accepts the primacy of division, this operation 27)

Periphyseon 629AB [III, 17: 438-443]. Expositiones 184C-185A (1975, 106: 578-107: 587): ‘Due quippe partes sunt dialectice discipline, quarum una DIAIRETIKE, altera ANALYTIKE nuncupatur. Et DIAIRETIKE quidem diuisionis uim possidet; diuidit namque maximorum generum unitatem a summo usque deorsum, donec ad indiuiduas species perueniat, inque eis diuisionis terminum ponat; ANALYTIKE uero ex aduerso sibi posite partis diuisiones ab indiuiduis sursum uersus incipiens, perque eosdem gradus quibus illa descendit, ascendens conuoluit et colligit, easdem que in unitatem maximorum generum reducit [. . .].’ 29) Cf Periphyseon 628C [III, 16: 418-420]: ‘Quicunque enim recte diuidit a generalissimis debet incipere, et per generaliora progredi, ac sic, prout uirtus contemplationis succurit, ad specialissima peruenire’. The species specialissimae, in Eriugenian terminology, are the individuals. 30) Unlike the Aristotelian, who sees only abstraction, and for whom the starting point is sensible particulars (Anal. Post. 83b; Cat. 2a16-17), a philosopher who prefers the Platonic forma mentis will start with the universal which divides into particulars (Philebus 16cd). Porphyry, Isagoge translatio Boethii (1966, 12: 9-12): ‘Quapropter usque ad specialissima a generalissimis descendentem iubet Plato quiescere, descendere autem per media dividentem specificis differentiis’. Boethius, In Topica Ciceronis commentaria I, PL 64, col. 1045B2-7: ‘Plato etiam dialecticam vocat facultatem quae id quod unum est possit in plura partiri, veluti solet genus per proprias 28)

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is far more than a conceptual explanation of the division of a generic entity into its genera and species. It is a causal explanation of the being of individuals: the divisive pattern carries a causal meaning. This orientation of dialectic towards the problem of genera and species shows the underlying direction of Eriugena’s thought. For him, dialectic takes ousia as the original constitutive principle of reality and unfolds its successive divisions. One text highlights particularly well the privileged relation between dialectic and ousia: Does not that art which the Greeks call “Dialectic” and which is defined as the science of disputing well, concern itself with OUSIA as its own proper principle, from which every division and multiplication of those things which that art discusses takes its origin, descending through the most general genera and the genera of intermediate generality as far as the most special forms and species, and also never ceasing to return, according to the rules of synthesis, by the same steps by which it descended until it reaches that same OUSIA from which it issued, does not cease to return to it; and it yearns to rest in it forever, and to be gathered in with it in a movement that is entirely or mostly intelligible?31

The fact that ousia is the principal subject of dialectic shows its strong link to ontology. For Eriugena, dialectic is first of all the science of essence. The primacy of ousia in dialectic is a postulate inherited from Middle Platonism, a philosophical current which strongly influenced Porphyry,32 who himself is one of Eriugena’s sources. Take, for instance, Alcinous, according to whom the task of dialectic is firstly to examine the essence of all things and to search the nature of each thing by division and definition.33 Eriugena’s philosophical position is based on the identification of the dialectical movement of diairetike and analytike with the ontological movement of proodos and epistrophe. The dialectical divisio overlays the ontological processio.

differentias usque ad ultimas species separari, atque ea quae multa sunt, in unum generum ratione colligere.’ 31) Periphyseon 868D-869A [V, 14: 360-370]. 32) See Zambon (2002), 295-338. 33) Alcinous (1993), 8: 25-32: ‘Dialectic, according to Plato, has as its fundamental purpose first the examination of the essence of every thing whatsoever, and then of its accidents. It enquires into the nature of each thing either ‘from above’, by means of division and definition, or ‘from below’, by means of analysis. Accidental qualities which belong to essences it examines either from the standpoint of individuals, by induction, or from the standpoint of universals, by syllogistic. So, logically, dialectic comprises the procedures of division, definition, analysis, and in addition induction and syllogistic’.


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Eriugena sees the diairetical descent from the universal to the particular as analogous to the ontological relation between them. In the same way as the mind conceives the division of a genus into its species, in nature, the genus unfolds in order to create its subdivisions by transmitting its being. The presence of the genus animal in this cat is the ontological cause of its animality. The most universal entity causes the being of those which are inferior, and this applies from the top to the bottom of the ontological hierarchy constituted by Porphyry’s Tree. The creation of nature is seen as the unfolding of the logical hierarchy from the genus generalissimum down to the individuals. This Tree is presented as being the divine plan and is called upon by Eriugena in the exegesis of certain verses from Genesis (cf Periphyseon 748CD). Eriugena thus assigns to dialectic the task of reconstructing in thought and language the movement of reality, i.e. the multiplying procession of the one into the multiple and the unifying conversion of the multiple into the one. It is then easy to postulate the exact coincidence between notions and the substance of things.34

A Realist Exegesis of the Categories Eriugena gives a realist ontological exegesis of the texts of the Logica vetus: he maintains that the subject of the Categories35 and of the Isagoge is primarily things, and not words or concepts. In the words of the Neoplatonic school, for Eriugena, the skopos of the Categories is things. Convinced that the scope of dialectic covers the fields of philosophy of language, metaphysics, and in a restricted manner, physics, Eriugena makes dialectic into the means of inquiry and analysis of the ontological structure of reality, of its reflection in our thought, and of the way we express it through language. Two claims follow from this: 1. The categories are the highest genera of being. They are the principles of reality. 2. Porphyry’s Tree corresponds to the ontological structure of reality. The world is a realization of this division of substance.

34)

See Periphyseon 769A [IV, 41: 1093-1095]: ‘Quid ergo mirum, si rerum notio, quam mens humana possidet, dum in ea creata est, ipsarum rerum quarum notio est substantia intelligatur’. 35) On Eriugena on the categories, see von Perger (2005).

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The ten categories are no longer considered as a way of classifying predicates, but become a complete classification of things; no created reality can avoid categorization: For since, according to Aristotle, there are ten genera of things (decem genera rerum) which are called categories, that is, predicaments, and we find that none of the Greeks or the Latins oppose this division of things into genera [. . .].36 Aristotle, the shrewdest among the Greeks, as they say, in discovering the way of distinguishing natural things (naturalium rerum), included the innumerable variety of all things which come after God and are created by Him in ten universal genera which he called the ten categories, that is, predicaments. Nothing can be found in the multitude of created things (in multitudine creatarum rerum) and in the various motions of minds which cannot be included in one of these genera.37 There are ten genera of things (decem genera rerum) which are called “categories” by the Greeks, and “predicaments” by the Latins: substance, quantity, quality, relation, position, state, place, time, action, passion.38

The categories are categories of being in the strong sense. They are the highest genera of things and not only logical entities. This conception of the categories is associated with the claim that genera and species have real being. For someone who holds that the subject of the Categories is things, this determines, at least in part, the answer given to the problem of universals, in a realist direction. This is precisely Eriugena’s choice. Secondly, the structure of Porphyry’s Tree is not only a logical structure of thought, but also the exact reproduction of reality. It is the structural pattern according to which reality was created by God, exists in the sensible world, and is thought by man. According to Eriugena, the world is a complete realization of Porphyry’s Tree; the hierarchy of genera and species is real. Genera and species are not only logical categories, but ontological degrees of reality. General ousia is the cause of the being of all its subdivisions, genera, species and individuals (cf 605AB: Omnis substantia a generali essentia defluit ).39 The

36)

Periphyseon 507C [I, 90: 2807-2810]. Periphyseon 463A [I, 32: 887-893]. 38) Annotationes in Marcianum, John Scottus Eriugena (1939), 84: 3-6. 39) See the example of fire, which, being a substance, cannot have another cause than the general essence (generalissima essentia; 605B); and Periphyseon 750A [IV, 14: 328-332]: ‘Est enim generalissima quaedam atque communis omnium natura, ab uno omnium principio creata, ex qua ueluti amplissimo fonte per poros occultos corporalis creaturae ueluti quidam riuuli deriuantur, et in diuersas formas singularum rerum eructant’. 37)


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emanation of reality from the first unique principle is ontologically parallel to the hierarchical degrees of the dialectical division of ousia: At the top, there is the most general genus which is called ousia by the Greeks, and essence by us, above which it is impossible to go. For it is an essence which embraces all nature; everything which is, subsists through participating in it, and for this reason, it is called the most general genus. It descends through divisions, through genera and species, until [it reaches] the most special species, which is called atomos by the Greeks, that is, the individual: for instance, one man or one ox.40

For Eriugena, Porphyry’s Tree is the backbone of reality. Its subsequent logical structure reflects the nature of things. Dialectic must express in its logical formulations the ontological priority of animal regarding man and the fact that animal causes the animalhood of man.

A Realist Ontology By asserting the capacity of dialectic as a science of being to express truths about the sensible world as well as about discourse, and by giving a realist ontological interpretation of the Categories and Isagoge, Eriugena develops his metaphysical theory, a strong realism. His realism states the existence of universals ante rem in the form of primordial causes or divine thoughts, and, what concerns us more closely here, the existence of immanent universals. Eriugena gives a clear formulation, not only of a theological realism (divine ideas), but also, and principally, of an ontological realism, the assertion of the immanent existence of forms. Thus Eriugena admits into his ontology three types of substantial entities: 1) divine thoughts, which can be understood as ante rem universals; 2) immanent universals which only exist in individuals (generic or specific essences); 3) individuals which instantiate universals. Indicative of his syncretism, Eriugena associates a theory of divine ideas, the medieval version of the Platonic theory transmitted by Augustine, with a more Aristotelian realism of immanent forms. He thus accepts the existence of

40)

John Scottus Eriugena (1939), 84: 10-17.

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separated universals, which are anterior to sensible objects, and of instantiated universals (genera and species), which subsist in individuals. Eriugena completes his ontology with the idea of notiones, concepts obtained by abstraction, which recreate the substance of things in the human mind and which can be understood as post rem universals. Such a combination once again associates Eriugena with Neoplatonic thought. Already Middle Platonists defended immanent forms, but the combination of universals before the many, in the many, and after the many, is a product of the Neoplatonic exegesis of Porphyry’s Isagoge by, among others, Ammonius, Elias and David.41 Confronted with the alternative between the primacy of the universal and that of primary substance, Eriugena chooses that of the universal, giving priority to the model of explanation of the singular by division of the universal; he gives only an accidental status to individuality, and ascribes substantiality only to the universal. Eriugena’s theory of divine ideas is Platonic42 in nature, but his conception of generic and specific universals is not, because it implies not separation but immanence, and a complete instantiation of the universal in each individual. Eriugena states frequently the real subsistence of genera and species in their inferiors: they are completely and simultaneously present in each of their subdivisions. For him, the species man is present one and the same, tota et simul, in each particular man. In the case of man, Eriugena asserts: ‘The substantial form is [. . .] in all [individuals] one and the same, and in all it is equally whole, and in none does it admit any variation or dissimilarity’.43 This rejection of variation in substantiality is probably inspired by the Aristotelian thesis according to which substance does not admit of a more and a less (Categories 3b334a9; Isagoge 9: 16-23). The species is completely present in each man, but is no less a universal one and common: ‘All men have one and the same OUSIA— for all participate in one essence, and therefore, because it is common to all, it is proper to none’.44 For Eriugena, there are no particular essences, an essence

41)

For a summary of this thesis, see Proclus (1987), 40-41: ‘Every universal, that is, every one that includes a many, either appears in the particulars and has its existence in them and is inseparable from them, holding its place in their ranks moving as they move and remaining motionless when they are stationary; or exists prior to the many and produces plurality by offering its appearances to the many instances, itself ranged indivisibly above them but enabling these derivatives to share in its nature in a variety of ways; or is formed from particulars by reflection and has its existence as an after-effect, a later-born addition to the many’. 42) Cf Norris Clarke (1982), 116. 43) Periphyseon 703AB [III, 120: 3489-121: 3501]. 44) Periphyseon 491AB [I, 68: 2088-2091].


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is necessarily common to all the individuals of a given species.45 The place of the species is nowhere but in individuals, present in each of them, without variation or deterioration: ‘human nature is distributed (diffunditur) through all men and is wholly in all and wholly [instanciated] in each individual whether good or evil [. . .], it is pure in all [. . .], in all it is equal’.46 Since the universal nature is fully instantiated by each individual, there is no difference of degree: nullus homo alio homine humanior est (943 A). The substance man is common to all men, who are only distinguished from one another by a bundle of accidents particular to each individual.47 Substance is unique and common; individuation is accidental.48 The individual is substantial insofar as it instantiates its specific universal. Eriugena reduces individuality to a bundle of universal accidents. The only thing which an individual possesses as it own is its body, not its essence. The model of genus as omnipresent comes from Boethius’ second commentary to Porphyry (Boethius, 1906, 162: 23-163: 3). Boethius enumerates three conditions which a genus is supposed to meet: it should be wholly present, immanent in the individuals, and constitutive of the metaphysical being of the individuals. Eriugena defends the existence of entities meeting these three criteria. He extends this model to all the degrees of Porphyry’s Tree, from the species to ousia, the unique genus generalissimum. Thus, he describes the place of subsistence of ousia as follows: N.—How does it seem to you? Is not OUSIA wholly and properly contained within the most general genera and in the more general genera as well as in the genera themselves and in their species and again in those most special species which are called atoms, that is, individuals? A.—I see that there nothing else in which OUSIA can be naturally present except in the genera and species which extend from the highest down to the lowest, that is from the most general to the most special, that is, the individuals, and up in turn from the individuals to the most general genera. For universal OUSIA subsists in these as if in its natural parts.49

45) Eriugena criticizes the notion of primary substance by using the argument that, since all the substantial being of the individual is given by the species, nothing distinguishes substantially an individual from its species. See Periphyseon 470D-471A [I, 42:1224-1235]. 46) Periphyseon 942C [V, 115: 3697-3703]. 47) Here the scheme originates in Porphyry (Isagoge 7: 19-27) and was transmitted through Boethius’ De trinitate (2000, 167: 46-168: 63). 48) See Gracia (1984), 129-135. 49) Periphyseon 472C [I, 44: 1295-45: 1305].

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Ousia is considered the paradigmatic universal by Eriugena. A universal in the highest sense of the word, ousia has all its characteristics—subsistence, omnipresence in each of its members, total immanence in its inferiors—: ‘tota enim simul et semper in suis subdiuisionibus aeternaliter et incommutabiliter subsistit omnesque subdiuisiones sui simul ac semper in se ipsa unum inseparabile sunt’ (492C). The omnipresence of ousia causes the subsistence of the entire hierarchy which is subordinate to it.50 The entity present in an immanent way in secondary and primary substances can be no other than ousia, the generalis essentia at the top of Porphyry’s Tree.51 This realist statement also highlights the fact that genera, species and individuals are considered equal from the point of view of subsistence—ousia being absolutely identical in a genus and in an individual. According to Eriugena, the universal exists in the individual as its ontological component; its degree of subsistence therefore cannot be less than that of the individual. Unlike many logicians from the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries, Eriugena is more interested in metaphysics than in the philosophy of language: his project is to give a rational analysis of the world. It is the structure of reality, and not that of predication, which Eriugena wants to explain. In this sense, he is fully representative of the early medieval philosophical project of categorical ontology. The nature of his project itself—to give a division of nature—is revealing. Consider, first, the idea of division: the conceptual principle here is that of the division of the unique principle into a multiple reality. And the idea of nature places us immediately on the level of res. In this framework, the other theoretical elements fit coherently: the status of dialectic, the subject of the categories and ontological realism are different aspects of a same philosophical project. The categories are included in a metaphysics which does not limit itself to the analysis of the sensible world, but in which the intelligible plays a leading part. In Eriugena’s work, Porphyry’s project of integrating the categories into Neoplatonic metaphysics reaches its fulfilment.52

50) Periphyseon 479C [I, 53: 1590-1592]: ‘Nam genera et species et ATOMA propterea semper sunt ac permanent quia inest eis aliquod unum indiuiduum, quod solui nequit neque destrui’. Cf Categoriae decem §57, AL I, 1-5, 145: 28: ‘ipsa autem usia genus non habet cum omnia ipsa sustineat’. 51) See Erismann (2002). 52) I am grateful to John Marenbon for his helpful suggestions and I am indebted to his pioneering work on the philosophy of Eriugena. I would like to thank the British Academy for supporting my research.


www.brill.nl/viv

Priscian on Divine Ideas and Mental Conceptions: The Discussions in the Glosulae in Priscianum, the Notae Dunelmenses, William of Champeaux and Abelard Irène Rosier-Catach CNRS/Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris

Abstract Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae, which rely on Stoic and Neoplatonic sources, constituted an important, although quite neglected, link in the chain of transmission of ancient philosophy in the Middle Ages. There is, in particular, a passage where Priscian discusses the vexed claim that common names can be proper names of the universal species and where he talks about the ideas existing in the divine mind. At the beginning of the 12th century, the anonymous Glosulae super Priscianum and the Notae Dunelmenses, which heavily quote William of Champeaux (as master G.), interpret the passage in the context of a growing interest in the problem of universals, raising semantic as well as ontological questions, and introducing a Platonic view on universals in the discussions on the signification of the noun. Moreover, this same passage will be used by Abelard to elaborate one of his opinions about the signification of universal or common names—that they signify “mental conceptions”. Keywords Abelard, language, grammar, Plato, noun, signification

The interplay between grammar and logic at the turn of the twelfth century has long been recognized.1 A long and influential commentary on Priscian, the Glosulae on Priscian, played an important role in the analysis of various 1)

In this article, the following abbreviations are used: Abelard, LNPS = Glossulae magistri Petri Baelardi super Porphyrium); Abelard, Sup. Per. = Logica Ingredientibus: Glossae super Periermeneias; Abelard, Sup. Porph. = Logica Ingredientibus: Glossae super Porphyrium, all ed. in Peter Abelard (1919-1939); Abelard, Sup.Top. = Logica Ingredientibus: Super Topica Glossae, ed. in Peter Abelard


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217731

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I. Rosier-Catach / Vivarium 45 (2007) 219-237

logico-grammatical problems (like the distinction between nominatio and significatio, between the existential and copulative import of the copula, the nature and meaning of the proposition, the theory of paronyms, of the consignificative parts of speech, of the dictum etc.), and often we find Abelard elaborating his own views through a discussion and criticism of such analysis. Moreover, Priscian’s Institutiones, which relied on Stoic and Neoplatonic sources, constituted an important, although quite neglected, link in the chain of the transmission of ancient philosophy in the Middle Ages. There is in particular a passage, when he is discussing the vexed claim that common names can be proper names of the universal species, where Priscian talks about the ideas existing in the divine mind. The grammatical commentaries on this passage, which they interpret in the context of a growing interest in the problem of universals, both raise semantic as well as ontological questions, and introduce a Platonic view on universals into the discussions. Moreover, this passage will be used by Abelard to elaborate one of his opinions about the signification of universal or common names—that they signify “mental conceptions”.

The Notae Dunelmenses and the Glosulae In an important article, Richard Hunt (1941-1943) called attention to the Glosulae on Priscian and to the Notae Dunelmenses, which were then studied by L. M. de Rijk (1962-1967), Margareta. Fredborg (1977, 1988), Onno Kneepkens (1978, 1992) and Constant Mews (1987, 1992) in particular. The Notae Dunelmenses (title: Note super Pris et super reth veterem Tullii in fine li), are found in a Durham manuscript. They contain three sets of notes on Priscianus maior, two on Priscianum minor, and a last one on Cicero’s De inventione, attributed by Fredborg to William of Champeaux (Fredborg 1976b, 2003). Numerous masters are quoted in the (1954); GPma = Glosulae super Priscianum maiorem: transcriptions are made from the ms: K = Cologne Dom B. 201, 12e th. f. 1ra-74rb, M = Metz, Bibl. Mun. 1224, f. 1ra-110rb, 12e th., C = Chartres B. Mun. 209 (248), f. 1-86v, P = Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. lat. 1623, f. 1-56, and I = the incunabula version, by Georgius Arrivabenus, Venise 1488; GPmi = (1) Glosa Victorina, (incomplete) comm. on Priscian XVII, 1-32, Arsenal 910, f. 133ra-140vb (forthcoming edition from Margareta Fredborg), (2) complete version in three ms. B = Londres, BM Burney 238; L = Londres, BM Harley 2713; et O = Orléans, Bibl. Mun. 90; ND = Notae Dunelmenses, D = ms. Durham, University Library c. IV. 29, f. 2ra-215va; Josselin de Soissons, De generibus et speciebus, ed. in Peter Abelard (1836);TQG = Walter of Mortagne, Tractatus Quoniam de Generali et speciali statu rerum universalium; Sententia de universalibus secundum magistrum R, both ed. in Dijs (1990).


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Notae (M. Anselmus and M.A., Stephanus and M.S., M. Menegaldus, M.Ber.), M. G. being by far the most quoted author, in sections covering Priscian maior (ND1 and ND3) and in sections covering Priscian minor (ND5). The Glosulae on Priscian maior (GPma) themselves are preserved in several manuscripts. Two related commentaries on Priscian minor have been studied, which we will call in this study Glosulae on Priscian minor (GPmi), without any special claim about their authorship or kinship with the GPma. His author is again a master G. (Kneepkens (1978), p. 117). The confrontation of testimonies show that this master G. can be identified in many cases at least with William of Champeaux, although the fact that “M. G”’s opinions are distinguished from those of the Glosulae confirms, importantly, that William is not the author of the Glosulae (Hunt 1941-1943; Fredborg 1977; Kneepkens 1978; Rosier-Catach 2003a, 2003b, 2003c and forthcoming a and b). All these facts show that William of Champeaux lectured on Priscian, major and minor, probably using existing glosses on Priscian in a critical and original way, and that Abelard knew these lectures. Often the compiler(s) of the Notae mentions M.G.’s, that is William’s, opinions as though he was in some kind of direct contact with him, talking as if he had actually heard him teach, asking his opinion on some point or other.2 So he (they) may be one of the masters whom William nominated to Notre-Dame. Common Nouns as Proper Nouns In three passages of the Institutiones, Priscian claims that the appellative noun can be taken as the proper noun of a common form, or species: [2] Priscian, Institutiones XVII, 35 (GL3, 130: 10-13). But when I say ‘what is rational mortal animal’, I want to signify the species, that is man, which, although it seems common to all men, is however proper to the incorporeal species.3 [3] Priscian, Institutiones XVII, 43(GL3, 134: 19-27). They are also accustomed to join appellatives to the infinite name ‘quis’, but more usually they join it to generic or specific nouns, as ‘Who invented letters?’ ‘Man’; ‘What is useful to the plowman?’ ‘An ox’; ‘What swims in the sea?’. ‘Fish’. But it seems that here the thing is an individual, when the question is asked in a general way about this animal itself. Similarly, when I say to many people present, ‘Who is a grammarian among you, who is an orator, who is a doctor?’, and when

2)

ND1, D, f. 8rb (ad IG, VIII, 43); ND1, D, f. 9bisrb (ad IG, VIII, 70) “Cum dico vero ‘quid est animal rationale mortale?’, speciem mihi volo manifestari, id est hominem, quae quamvis videatur esse communis omnium hominum, tamen est etiam propria ipsius speciei incorporalis.”

3)

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the answer given is ‘I am a grammarian, you are an orator, he is a doctor’, take the place of proper nouns.4

The passage immediately following [3] is the well-known passage where Priscian talks about the forms existing in the divine mind: [4] Priscian, XVII, 44 (GL3, 135: 1-10). In definitions it is also customary, in order to ask about all things which can be defined, to first posit the substantive in the neuter, and for many appellative nouns of differentiae to be referred to it, as ‘What is an animal?’ ‘An animated substance’, and by conversion, ‘What is animated substance?’ ‘An animal’. ‘What is man?’: ‘A rational mortal animal’, and by conversion, ‘What is a rational mortal animal?’ ‘A man’. The same may be done for all definitions, although, with regard to the generic and specific forms of things, which exist in an intelligible way in the divine mind before they come forth in bodies, they can also be proper by which the genus and species of the nature of things are shown.5

According to the commentator, Priscian in these passages indicates that the common noun can be used as a proper noun, for the species. The problem will be to determine in which way the species signified can be said to be one, since the characteristic of the proper noun is to signify a proper or singular quality. The Universal Existing in Things and Conceived as a Singular As might be expected, discussions on these passages will be found in the corresponding glosses, in the GPmi, and in ND5. But in the GPma, the commentary on the definition of the noun (ad II, 22) mentions these two possible uses of a common noun, as an appellative noun and as a proper noun: [5] GPma, K 14rb-va, M 20rb-20va, C 12va, P 11va, [I 26v] (ad II, 22; GL2, 56: 28). And common. Once he has given the definition of the noun, he exemplifies it through its parts, saying that the noun is what shows a common quality of bodies, as ‘man’ shows rationality and mortality, which are found the same in different individuals. (a) Note that when ‘man’ signifies the species itself, it is taken as a proper name, since the universal nature which it 4)

“Appellativa quoque nomini infinito, quod est ‘quis’ solent subiungi, sed magis generalia aut specialia, ut ‘quis invenit literas?’, ‘homo’, ‘quis utilis est aratro ?’ ‘bos’; ‘quis natat in mari ?’ ‘piscis’; sed videtur hic quoque res individua esse, cum de ipso generaliter animali est interrogatio. Similiter si dicam multis praesentibus ‘quis est de vobis grammaticus, quis orator, quis medicus?’ et respondeatur ‘ego quidem sum grammaticus, tu orator, ille medicus’ loco propriorum accipiuntur.” 5) “In definitionibus quoque solet ad interrogationem omnium rerum, quae definiri possunt, neutrum substantivi praeponi et multa appellativa differentiarum nomina ad id referri, ut ‘quid est animal ?’ ‘substantia animata’, et per conversionem ‘quid est substantia animata ?’ ‘animal’;


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designates is understood to be like one, singular man. (b) Some people, however, state that ‘man’ is always appellative, deciding that nouns should be judged according to the nature of their invention, not according to any mode of signification . The person who first invented this utterance ‘man’ did not consider the unformed species, but the thing which is subject to the senses, which he considered as sensible, rational, mortal; and so he imposed the noun ‘man’ on the thing present to him and on all the other things which come together in this nature. Therefore by nature ‘man’ is an appellative noun. If, however, later by the intellect alone the rational soul, led by a certain similarity with other things, conceived a certain one thing common to all men as if it were subsisting by itself, not as it really is in the nature of things, and designated it by the noun ‘man’, this does not seem to imply that ‘man’ should be called a proper noun, since it designates neither a private substance, nor a private quality, but one which is common to many.6

Notes (a) and (b) are in fact interpolations, probably taken from glosses on Priscian minor. They are not about the nature of universals, but about the meaning of the appellative noun. (a) states that when an appellative noun like “homo” signifies the species, it is taken as a proper noun, since “since the universal nature which it designates is understood to be like one, singular man”. Then comes the objection of quidam (b) who claim that “homo” is always appellative: they wish to make a difference between the proper signification of the noun, which relies on its primary invention, and a further use it may have, a “modus significationis”. An appellative noun was first invented to signify

‘quid est homo ?’ ‘animal rationale mortale’, et per conversionem ‘quid est animal rationale mortale ?’ ‘homo’. Idem licet facere per omnes definitiones, quamvis quantum ad generales et speciales formas rerum, quae in mente divina intellegibiliter constiterunt antequam in corpora prodirent, haec quoque propria possint esse, quibus genera et species naturae rerum demonstrantur.” 6) “Et communem. Posita nominis diffinitione exemplificat inde per partes, dicens communem quidem corporum qualitatem demonstrans nomen, ut ‘homo’ rationalitatem et mortalitatem, quein diversis individuis eadem reperitur. (a) Nota quia quando ‘homo’ speciem illam significat, ut proprium nomen accipitur, cum6 universalis illa natura quam designat velut unus et singularis homo esse intelligatur. (b) Quidam tamen ‘homo’ appellativum semper affirmant, arbitrantes iudicandum esse de nominibus /K 14va/ secundum naturam inventionis ipsorum nominum, non secundum quemlibet modum significationis. Qui autem invenit prius hanc vocem ‘homo’, non respexit ad illam speciem informem, sed ad rem sensibus subiacentem, quam consideravit sensibilem, rationalem, mortalem; sicque illi presenti cum omnibus aliis in hac natura convenientibus hoc nomen ‘homo’ imposuit. Itaque ex natura ‘homo’ appellativum est. Si autem postea animus rationalis, quadam similitudine aliarum rerum ductus, rem quandam unam quidem et omnibus hominibus communem quasi per se subsistentem, non quantum in rerum natura ita se habentem, solo intellectu concepit, eamque hoc nomine ‘homo’ designavit, non tamen propter hoc ‘homo’ videtur debere dici proprium, cum nec privatam substantiam /M20va/ nec privatam qualitatem, immo communem pluribus designet.”

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singular sensible things, with their qualities, and all the things which share the same nature. But the mind is free to conceive this “one thing common to all men”, the “species without forms” of man, not as it exists in natura rerum (in the sensible things where this nature subsists), but as if it were something subsisting by itself.7 The mind is thus free to use the word “homo” to designate this universal species conceived as a singular, per similitudinem, but this will not turn the appellative noun “homo” into a proper noun. The noun keeps the grammatical category it had when it was first imposed, and does not change its category by a further use. Thus these quidam do not deny that the common noun can function as a proper name, but they deny that when it does so it should change its grammatical category. The argument is based on the distinction between primary and secondary meaning, which is used extensively by William of Champeaux, for instance to state that the inherence or adjacence is signified primarily by the verb, but secondarily by the adjective (RosierCatach 2003a, 2004b). So the opinion (a) that a common noun can function as a proper name for the species as a singular can be accepted only with the correction introduced by the quidam in (b), i.e. if one is clear that it will always primarily be an appellative noun, and only derivatively a proper one. An interpolation in the Chartres ms. of the Glosulae, in which the additions often reflects William’s teaching, stresses the same idea that common nouns are always appellative according to their first invention.8 It is noteworthy that, except for our interpolated passage [5] above, we find in the GPma only an immanent realist position.9 For instance, in the wellknown gloss on the proprium of the noun, we read that there is “the same substance or essence in all individual men”, and that the individuals are differentiated by their “qualities” or “properties”, the signification of this common or proper quality being thus the “cause of invention” of names. “Man” signifies “a thing which is similar to others through a common quality”, this quality, i.e. mortality and rationality, “being in all men which agree in it”, whereas “Socrates” signifies this thing “as distinct from others” by a collection of accidents “which is never as a whole identical” in other men, and thus a proper quality. The person signified by “Socrates” is not discrete from other men in its “substantial being”, but only by its properties, which are being Sophroniscus’ son, being a poet, etc.10 7)

Cf. Boethius, In. Porph., ed. II, p. 167: 14 sq. GPma, K 14rb, M 20ra, C 12rb-va, P 10rb, I 26r-v. 9) For a detailed analysis and edition of these passages, see Rosier-Catach (forthcoming a). 10) GPma, K 13ra-rb, M 18va, C 11va, P 10rb, I 24v (ad II, 18; GL2, 55: 6); GPma, K 14ra, M 20ra, C 12ra, P 10va, I 26r, ed. of these passages in Rosier-Catach (forthcoming a). 8)


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Commentaries ad XVII. 35 and XVII.43, in the GPmi, explain that an appellative noun can be the (quasi) proper noun of the universal incorporeal species or res, and, more specifically, that the species man is “in every man and thus is in every one in such a way that it is every one of them”. So to the question “what is a rational mortal animal” the proper answer is “man”, “the common name of all men”, and not “singular men”,11 just as to the question “what is useful to the plowman” the proper answer is “ox” which is “the proper name of this universal thing which is scattered in all oxen”.12 This idea that the universal res is “scattered” in (or rather “through”: per) every member of that species echoes a passage found in a commentary on the Categories attributed to William of Champeaux as well as in the Introductiones dialecticae secundum Wilgelmum.13 The GPmi, ad XVII.44 glosses further on the divine ideas: [6] GPmi, ms. Orléans, BM 90 p. 376b (ad XVII 44 = text [4]). Although, with regard to (135.7). Above he showed that both the nouns through which a question is put and those which are answered are appellative, now he says that although they are appellative, yet when they refer to generic and specific natures in their simplicity, they can be proper

11)

GPmi, ms. Orléans 90, p. 373° (ad XVII.35; 130.12). “Quae quamvis. Quia dixerat quod animal rationale mortale respondetur illa species homo; et ita ‘homo’ istud nomen est commune vocabulum omnium hominum, unde videtur quod omnes illi responderi possent, tamen (tantum ms.) est propria id est quasi proprium nomen ipsius speciei incorporalis. Et ex hoc patet quod species responderi debet et non singuli homines. Vel aliter supradicta potest continuari sententia. Quia dixerat hominem speciem responderi et species est et ita est in singulis hominibus quod est unumquodque de illis unde videretur quod omnes illi respondentur, illud removet. Continuatio litterae. Ad animal rationale mortale respondetur illa species homo que, id est que species, quamvis videatur esse communis omnium hominum (130.12-13), id est quamvis sit in omnibus hominibus et ita sit in omnibus quod sit unumquodque de illis, unde videretur quod illi responderentur, tamen est propria ipsius speciei incorporalis id est propria species et incorporalis intransitive. Et ex hoc quod species illa est propria et incorporalis patet quod non omnes homines respondentur sed solum propria species.” 12) GPmi, ms. Orléans 90, p. 376 (ad XVII.43; 134.19): “Appellativa quoque. Dixit superius ad ‘quis’ quandoque responderi propria nomina, quandoque pronomina, aliquando etiam appellativa nomina, nunc vero vult ostendere quod aliquando ad ‘quis’ respondentur appellativa nomina in designatione rerum individualium. Cum vero dico ‘quis est utilis aratro ?’ et respondeo ‘bos’, quamvis ‘bos’ sit proprium nomen illius rei universalis quod per omnes boves spargitur, tamen quia ‘bos’ illi interrogationi ad talem ‘quis’ responderetur quod non convenit illi universali rei in sua universalitate, sed tamen bos individua eius vel vox eius, et ideo respondetur in designatione individualis bovis . . .” 13) C8 (original version), see Iwakuma (2003b), p. 327; Introductiones dialecticae <secundum Wilgelmum>, ed. by Iwakuma (1993), pp. 58-59; cf. Tractatus quoniam de generali, ed. by J. Dijs (1990), p. 95, par. 6.

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<nouns>.The letter of the text read as follows. The aforesaid nouns are appellative, and although they are appellative they can also be proper, by which the genera and species of the natures of things, that is of individuals, are shown, that is are signified. What he says should be understood in this way, that just as singular nouns are proper <nouns>, so are the aforesaid appellative <nouns>. He determines the way in which appellative <nouns> are proper <nouns>, when he says: with regard to the generic and specific forms of things, that is with regard to the fact that they signify genera and species. What are called ‘forms of things’ should be here understood as being such that from them things come into being not formally, but materially. Which in the mind (135.8): he shows a certain property of these forms, exist in an intelligible way in the divine mind before they come forth in bodies, that is: God conceived them before they were brought about as existing in the nature of thing. Or alternatively: the aforesaid nouns are said to be proper <nouns> because they signify the generic and specific substances of things, that is the original forms which are in the divine mind, to the exemplary likeness of which our species are made, and thus ‘man’ and ‘donkey’ are names for God. And the original form in the divine mind is nothing other than God in himself, although it may seem absurd.14

Some theses found in these passages are perfectly consonant with William’ of Champeaux’s material essence theory, as reported by Abelard and others.15 Five theses are particularly relevant for a comparison with our texts: (1) different men in specie are one man; (2) there is one same universal nature or res in all singulars belonging to the same species; (3) this universal nature is a material essence; (4) it becomes individual through a “collection of properties” if it is a species, through the differences if it is a genus; (5) the universal does not exist apart from those properties and thus only exists in individual things; (6) it can be thought in an abstracted way as being separated from any of these 14) “Quamvis quantum (135.7): superius ostendit nomina esse appellativa tam illa per que queritur quam illa que respondentur, modo vero dicit quod quamvis sint appellativa, tamen cum ad generales et speciales naturas in sua simplicitate referantur, possunt esse propria. Continuatio litere. Supradicta nomina sunt appellativa et quamvis sint appellativa, possunt hec quoque propria esse, quibus genera et species nature rerum, id est individuarum, demonstrantur id est significantur. Quod dicit, quoque sic est intelligendum, quod sicut singularia nomina sunt propria, sic appellativa supradicta. Quomodo appellativa sunt propria determinat quantum ad generales et speciales formas rerum, id est quantum ad hoc quod significant genera et species. Que dicuntur ‘forme rerum’ hic accipiende sunt ita quod ex eis fiant res non formaliter, sed materialiter. Que in mente (135.8): ostendit quandam proprietatem de illis formis que in divina mente antequam in corpora prodirent, intelligibiliter constiterunt, id est ea Deus prius intellexit quam efficerentur in natura rei existentes. Vel aliter: supradicta nomina dicuntur propria, secundum hoc quod significant generales et speciales substantias rerum, id est originales formas que sunt in mente divina, ad quarum exemplar facte sunt nostre species, et ita ‘homo’ et ‘asinus’ sunt nomina Dei. Et nichil aliud est originalis forma in mente divina quam Deus per se, quamvis videatur absurdum.” 15) Abelard, Sup. Porph., p. 10:17-25. Cf. C8 in Iwakuma (1999), p. 103; B10 ibid., p. 116.


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properties. In GPmi (texts in footnotes 11 and 12) we find all these theses except (3).16 The combination of (5) and (6), associated in section (b) of text [5] is stressed in a very close way in P3, an influential commentary on Porphyry from the same period.17 In text [6] from GPmi, there is also a clear formulation of thesis (1) and, importantly, the second passage in italics in our text echoes thesis (3): the “forms of things”, i.e. the genus and species, are those from which “things are made not formally but materially”,18 meaning that the generic and specific forms correspond to the “matter”, and the differentiae and accidental forms to the “form”, an idea also found in the P3 Isagoge commentary. This could be a further indication that the elaborations introduced in the GPmi, which are not in the GPma, may be associated with William of Champeaux’s teaching. Developments in the Notae Dunelmenses Let us now turn to the Notae Dunelmenses. In the ND5 we find a very rich gloss on XVII, 35, wondering about how the species can be said to be one, in order for the appellative designating it to be called a proper noun: [7] ND5, f. 152rb-152vb (XVII, 35; 130.12 = text [2]). which, although it seems common to all men, seems however to be proper to the incorporeal species. [A] It can be read in re and in voce. (1) An attack can be made on the statement that the question was asked about the species as if it was one thing, and that the answer was ‘man’ as if it was one thing—this, I say, can be attacked, because someone would see man being in all individuals, and thus he could not see one thing but many, so that he could and should answer ‘Socrates’, or ‘Plato’ etc. (2] Or, I say that his answering with this noun ‘man’, as if it designated this one species in question—that is to say, one thing, can be attacked generally since it seems that the utterance ‘man’ is fitted to Socrates, Plato, and all the others in common, and and so is the name of one thing. [B] So the words of the text can be read in two ways, either that the answer is given to an opinion about the thing, or to an opinion about the utterance. (1’) It can be read straightforwardly about the thing in the following way: which, the species, since it is common to all men, because it is one and indifferent + + + (lac. 8 fere litt.) † is by men† BUT it is also proper to the incorporeal <species> itself intransitively, that is, is properly this 16)

For the introduction of the term materia and the role of P3, see Iwakuma (1996). I am grateful to Y. Iwakuma for letting me use his transcription of P3 (Paris BnF lat. 13368, 215rb-216va), forthcoming in the Archives d’histoire doctrinales et littéraires du Moyen Âge. See Iwakuma (1996); Marenbon (2004b). The alphanumeric designations refer to the Catalogue in Marenbon (2000). 18) See also B10 (Iwakuma 1996, p. 116): “Totum definitivum ut homo constat ex partibus suis, ex materia essentialiter, ex forma formaliter.” 17)

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incorporeal species, because in its purity it is not perceived by the corporeal sense. (2’) It can be read about the utterance in this way: which, that is the name of the species, although etc. however it is proper to the incorporeal species, that is, properly signifies this incorporeal species, as if it were one thing in itself. Thus we say ‘man is a species’ as if it were a singular proposition. (X) But we should see how, when the utterance ‘man’ is taken in this way, as if it was the proper name of the incorporeal thing, and afterwards of Socrates and other men, this does not imply that the name is in some way equivocal—or at least that the name signifies Socrates by accident, since it properly signifies the incorporeal species. (Y) Furthermore we should see how we can understand the claim of some people, who say that this species exists in the divine mind, and is properly signified by ‘man’, and the other related questions which can be asked about this.19

The glossator correctly notices the ambiguity of Priscian’s formulation (text [2]), and that the passage can be read in re or in voce,20 a common distinction in the Glosulae and in the logical commentaries of the time (Iwakuma 1992; Marenbon 2004b). [A] When one says “What is a rational mortal animal?”, and someone answers “Man”, and then says that it is “proper to the incorporeal species”, are we questioning and answering about the species or about the name of the species? Even if, according to the glossator, the passage allows both a de re reading implying that the claim is about man as the species itself, 19)

“Quae quamvis omnium hominum communis esse videatur tamen et propria ipsius speciei incorporalis. [A] Potest legi et in re et in voce. (1) Posset calumpniari quod dixerat quaeri de specie quasi de una aliqua re et responderi ‘hominem’, quasi unam rem, ideo, inquam, posset calumpniari /152va/ quod aliquis videret hominem esse in omnibus individuis et ita non posse unam rem sed plures, et ita posse et debere responderi vel ‘Socratem’ vel ‘Platonem’ etc. (2) Vel ideo, inquam, simpliciter posset calumpniari, quod responderat ‘hominem’ hoc nomen, quasi in designatione illius quaesitae speciei unius scilicet rei, cum videret ‘hominem’ hanc vocem communiter convenire Socrati et Platoni et ceteris omnibus et ideo non esse nomen unius rei. [B] Et ita duobus modis potest legi haec littera, vel ita scilicet quod respondeat ad opinionem <de re> vel opinionem de voce. (1’) Secundum rem plane potest legi ita: quae species cum sit communis omnium hominum quia una et indifferens res + + + (lac.8 fere litt.) †est hominibus† tamen est etiam propria ipsius <speciei> +++ (lac. 5 fere litt.) incorporalis intransitive, id est proprie est ipsa species incorporalis, quia corporeo sensu in puritate illa non percipitur. (2’) De voce ita: Quae id est cuius speciei nomen quamvis etc. tamen est propria ipsius speciei incorporalis id est proprie significat illam speciem incorporalem quasi unam rem per se. Unde dicimus ‘homo est species’ quasi singularem esse propositionem. (X) Sed videndum est quomodo secundum hoc quod ita accipimus ‘homo’ hanc vocem quasi proprium nomen illius rei incorporalis (in corpore ms.) et postea Socratis et ceterorum, non sit quasi aequivocum—vel saltem ex accidenti significans Socratem, cum proprie significet illam incorpoream speciem. (Y) Deinde quomodo intellegendum sit quod quidam dicunt illam speciem in divina mente existere et ab homine proprie significari et cetera quae super hoc possunt quaeri etc.” 20) See Kneepkens (1978), n. 1, which mentions the gloss ‘Licet multi in artes’ where two interpretations are also offered of the passage.


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and a de voce reading implying that the claim is about “homo” as the name of the species, neither of these readings can confirm Priscian’s claim, and should be criticized. If (1) the question is about the species as a thing, then the claim is that the answer “homo” refers to the species as if it was one thing, but since on this theory man is in all individuals, he is not one thing but many; consequently the answer would have to be ‘Socrates’ or ‘Plato’ (or the name of some other individual). If, however, (2) the question is about the name of the species, then the answer would be the name “man”, but this would lead to the same problem, since the name “man”, given to designate the species as one thing, would in fact be the name of many things, i.e. Socrates or Plato. Neither with the first nor with the second reading can “homo” be the proper name of the incorporeal species as a singular. The second section of the passage [B] states again the two possible readings of the passage, but with an interpretation of “proper” as “properly”. With the in re reading (1’), the question is about the species man itself, which is common to all men, and which is properly the incorporeal species. With the de voce reading (2’), it refers to the name of the species, meaning that the answer “man” would properly mean the incorporeal species as if it was one thing. Interestingly the glossator, within the in re (1’) exposition, explains further the unity of the species, saying that the species is common to all men because it is “a thing which is one and indifferent”, a formulation which is of course reminiscent of William’s second theory of universals, the one he adopted after the harsh criticisms of Abelard.21 Unfortunately the passage is very corrupt here. But maybe it could be interpreted in the following way. To answer the criticism found in the first section of the passage [A], grounded on the fact that if the species (taken as a thing or as a name) was considered simply as one thing being in all individuals, then it would not be one but many, another solution was devised in [B], that the species was one as “indifferent”, which thus allows it to be really singular, in accord with Priscian’s claim. In this indifferentia theory indeed, as known from Abelard and other sources, the humanity which is in Socrates, Plato, etc. is not the same one humanity, but a numerically distinct and singular, although “not different” humanity.22 It is interesting to find close grammatical

21)

Cf. Historia Calamitatum, p. 65: 89-91; Sup. Porph., p. 13: 18-14: 6. Cf. De generibus et speciebus, p. 525: “Et sicut de homine dictum est, scilicet quod illud hominis quod sustinet Socratitem, illud essentialiter non sustinet Platonitatem, ita de animali. Nam illud animal quod formam humanitatis quae in me sustinet, illud essentialiter alibi non est, sed illi indifferens est in singulis materiis singulorum individuorum animalis . . .”.

22)

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discussions in the Sententia de universalibus secundum magistrum R, another proponent of the indifferentia theory, which should be compared with the analysis of collective nouns like “populus”, both in GPma and NDII.23 The nota ends raising two objections in form of questions. The first one (X), which is aimed at any interpretation which accepts the dual interpretation of “man” as a common and as a proper noun, rightly explains that it would thus be an equivocal name—an objection already discussed and solved by the quidam in [5](b), with the distinction between primary and secondary meaning. The second one (Y), clearly linked to Priscian XVII, 44, wonders, with some quidam, about how the species can be in the same time in the divine mind and signified by men—referring back as often in the ND to a previous discussion which is (unfortunately) not fully reported here. The gloss on XVII, 43 in the Notae Dunelmenses24 explains why Priscian says that even in answers to questions such as “fish swims in the sea”, “fish” is taken to refer to individuals: Priscian takes into consideration not the value of the word in this context (as a proper noun for the species), but the actual action (swimming) which can only be said of individuals, not of a species, a 23)

NDII, D, f. 49va, (ad VIII.93; 442.18). ND5, D, f. 157ra-rb (XVII.43, GL3, 134: 21): “Sed videtur hic quoque res individua esse, etc. Quod dicit in huiusmodi responsionibus ‘bos est utilis aratro’, ‘piscis natat in mari’, ‘bos’ et ‘piscis’ pro individuis accipi, non agit secundum vim vocum et notationes, sed secundum eventum ipsius actus. Et est simile ei quod excipit hoc verbum quod est ‘tonat’ a tertiis personis \verborum/ significantibus infinitam personam respiciens, scilicet non ad vim et notationem vocis, sed ad eventum ipsius actus uni et definitae tantum personae accidentis, id est Iovi secundum gentiles. Unde et actor, considerans huiusmodi actus ‘arare’, ‘natare’ in solis individuis esse animati[i]s, dicit (est dicere cod.) ‘bos’ et ‘piscis’ in susceptione huiusmodi actuum pro individuis accipi, non attendens enuntiationem rerum universalium secundum vim et notationem vocum, id est non attendens dialecticum sensum, sed actum rerum, secundum grammaticum sensum quem grammaticum sensum etiam in syllabis faciendis et argumentationibus suis attendunt dialectici. Sed quaerendum est quare aratio et natatio non possint esse in re universali, et an similiter possit dici ubicumque praedicantur quaelibet accidentia, an in quibusdam ita sit, in quibusdam non, et differentia inter ipsa, et qua ratione discernemus inhaerenti-/157rb/-as rerum pertinentium ad sola individua ab inhaerentiis rerum pertinentium etiam ad universalia, etc. (134.24) Similiter si dicam multis praesentibus ‘quis est de vobis grammaticus, quis orator, quis medicus?’ et respondeatur ‘ego quidem sum grammaticus, tu orator, ille medicus’ loco propriorum accipiuntur. Quaeratur an hoc quod determinat multis praesentibus se ita quaerere ‘quis de vobis etc.’, id est modus quaerendi aliquam vim faciat ad hoc ut ‘grammaticus’ etc. loco individuorum in responsione accipiantur, an ipsa responsio ex se sola vim habet secundum scilicet actum rerum de quibus agit ut in superioribus quoque responsionibus de bove arante et pisce natante etc. Et de quo sit huiusmodi quaestio ‘quis ex vobis vel quis horum’ etc., an de inferiori substantia vel alia et qua ratione etc. {fere 4 lin. vacant}” 24)


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point which could be the object of a further question, the compiler adds. The nota on XVII, 4425 merely enumerates, as often is the case in these notae, the questions which could be raised or have been raised about the passage. It mentions a peculiar claim made by master G., who denied that “quis” could be added to an “adjective of substances”, that is adjectives signifying a differentia, like “rational”, denying thus the possibility of questions such as “Quid est rationale”. The compiler interestingly parallels master G.’s opinion with a question raised in the “Topica” (=Boethius, De differentiis topicis, PL 1187A), which shows the connection between these passages in Priscian and the Topics, and the relevance of both for the discussion about the nature of universals. Indeed, this very same question is mentioned by Abelard in his own commentary, shortly after he discussed William of Champeaux’s opinion on predication and inherence.26 The theological content of the discussion, already present in question (Y) asked in ND5 (text [7]) is present here with the strange claim that the explanation of the passage should be made both “according to God and our faith and opinion (sententia)” and “according to God and the faith of philosophers and their opinion (opinio)”, and that both ways should explain how they understand that divine ideas can be in the divine mind. This remark is a good witness of the philosophical as well as theological relevance of Priscian XVII, 44.27

25)

ND5, D, f. 157ra-rb (XVII.44; 135: 1 = text [4]): “In definitionibus quoque solet etc. †Quare determinatur† rerum quae definiri possunt et an agatur de definitionibus tantum substantialibus an etiam de descriptionibus, cum possint et quaelibet descriptiones dici pro uno substantivo nomini accipi, et qua ratione neget M.G. ‘quis’ adiungi posse adiectivis etiam substantialibus ad interrogationem faciendam, ut ‘ Quid est rationale’ etc. : ‘homo’, ut ‘quid est animal ?’: ‘substantia animata’. Videtur qui talem dederunt animali /157va/ definitionem vel arbori animalia esse voluisse et non animatas. Ex qua forsitan opinione descendit illa quaestio in Topicis: ‘Utrum arbores sint animalia necne’ etc. Quamvis quantum ad generales et speciales formas etc (135: 5). Quomodo continetur versus iste et quot modis legatur tam secundum deum (sic) et fidem nostram et sententiam quam secundum deum et fidem philosophorum et opinionem eorum; et quot modis secundum utrosque exponi possit ideas esse in divina mente, etc. Et quomodo dicitur in Glosulis in definitionibus responsis ad ‘quid’ genus et differentias non nominare res suas etc.” We can note in this passage that master G. and the Glosulae are differentiated, implying once again that the GPmi are different from Master G.’s teaching on Priscian minor. 26) Abelard, Sup. Top., p. 280: 31, see also 242: 23-24. 27) See the texts in Dijs (1990), p. 95, par. 6 and pp. 114-115, where the same grammatical analysis of common nouns as proper nouns is found.

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Abelard Priscian XVII, 44 is quoted many times by Abelard, and often along with views attributed to Plato, in his discussions on universals (Marenbon 1997a, pp. 186-190). This has led to opposing modern interpretations on the “Platonism” of Peter Abelard.28 As has been fully shown in other studies, the important point in the discussion over universals is that once Abelard has criticized the view that universals are things, and chosen the only other alternative that they are utterances (voces), the question becomes that of the signification of universal names. Since there is no universal thing to which they correspond, and since Boethius wants all names and intellections to be grounded in some thing which is its “subject thing” (res subiecta),29 these universal or common names seem empty (Sup. Porph., p. 18: 4-19:6; cf. ibid., p. 8: 11-16; p. 30: 6-16). So Abelard, to maintain his position, has to give an answer to three questions:30 What is the common cause of the imposition of common nouns? What kind of common conception lies behind a universal noun / what is the intellection they generate?31 What justifies that such a name should be said to be “common” (the common cause of imposition, the common conception, or both)? The answers involve a long discussion which distinguishes the act of intellection from the object of intellection, which can be a real thing or a fictive one, and involves a detailed analysis of the role of imagination and images in the process of cognition and signification. Abelard proposes different answers to the problem of the signification of universal names, which have been interpreted either as an evolution in his thought, found in the chronological sequence of his writings (Marenbon 2002, pp. 162-195), or as a conflicting coincidence of various non-compatible models, occurring sometimes together in the same work, significantly in the Sup. Porph. (De Libera 1999a, pp. 367-464). I only want to discuss here one of these analyses according to which common names signify mental conceptions, since one of the passages from Priscian is called as the first authority for it.

28)

Tweedale (1976), pp. 185-188; Jolivet (1981); De Libera (1996); Marenbon (1997a), pp. 193195; esp. Marenbon (1997b). 29) On the elaboration of this thesis through Alexander of Aphrodisias view of a derived concept, see De Libera (1999a), chap. 1 and 2. 30) LI, Sup. Porph., p. 19: 14-20; LNPS, p. 530: 20-23. See the detailed analysis in Marenbon (1997a) and De Libera (1999a), 367 sq. 31) We find both formulation of the questions, the second one being chosen in LNPS.


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In Sup. Porph., in opposition to Boethius, Abelard interprets the clause that any noun must have a res subiecta, as meaning that this res subiecta can be either a real thing or a mental form (forma concepta), and that the form can be either “common” or “proper”, just as to represent a lion, either a general (but single) picture which represents all lions, or a picture of a lion with characteristics which depict one particular lion, can be drawn (Sup. Porph., p. 22: 7-24). The question is then whether the “common form”, that is the one towards which the mind is directed when hearing a common noun, is the signification of a universal noun. It is at this point that Priscian’s passage is mentioned (XVII, 44), in which, according to Abelard, Priscian discussed the imposition of universal names on individuals, also talking about an other signification they have, of the “common form”. The “general and common” forms of things mentioned by Priscian, Abelard explains, are exemplary forms, singular status of things,32 which are distinguished and known by God before he produces them by similitude as real things. They are “common conceptions in God’s mind”, but do not belong to men, who because of their sensible nature, cannot conceive them as pure forms, but only attached to accidents. So men know them only in a confused way, as an “opinion” rather than as real knowledge (intelligentia) (ibid., p. 22: 25-23: 17). The “inventor” imposed common names on individual things, but also wanted them to signify these common conceptions, although they are confused and cannot be perfectly known. For this reason, they are the significates of universal nouns, those to which the mind is immediately directed when hearing the universal names (ibid., p. 23: 18-30). Universal nouns are thus common for different reasons, because they signify a mental conception and because they have a common

32)

There are problems to determine whether these common conceptions are to be identified with status or not, especially when we accept that there are different stages in Abelard’s thinking about mental conceptions; see the important discussion in Marenbon (1997a), pp. 180-195. In connection to Priscian XVII, 44, J. M. explains, in a convincing way, that although divine common conceptions may be the status of things, it is not the case with human imperfect common conceptions which are distinct from them (see pp. 194-195). Jolivet, on the other hand, thinks that the foundation of the signification of universal names is the status existing in God’s mind, thus seing a kind of platonism in Abelard. I am not sure both explanations are incompatible as Marenbon puts it (n. 49, p. 194): as a matter of fact, it is possible to accept that the foundation of universal names is the status as they exist in a perfect state in God’s mind, and as they are imperfectly thought of (as “opiniones” not as real knowledge) but perfectly aimed at, by the human mind which is responsible for the actual imposition of words. See also De Libera (1999a), esp. pp. 373-376 and 461 showing the imprecise nature of the meaning of “status”, which is taken either for the prototype or for the ectype.

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cause of imposition, for instance the noun “man” being imposed for the same reason on every men (ibid., p. 24: 25-37). Although, as common, they “retain the similitude of many”, they are also proper since they signify the common conception (rationality, mortality, etc.) as one (ibid., p. 22: 16-17). This is the reason for Priscian’s claim, according to Abelard, that these “common conceptions” are the “quasi” proper names of the universals (quasi propria nomina esse dicit ipsa universalia) (ibid., p. 23: 26-37). But Abelard has more to say about those universals which are names. And he does so using a distinction, introduced by the Glosulae while commenting on Priscian’s definition of the noun as signifying substance with quality (Institutiones II, 18; GL2, p. 55: 6-7), between significatio and nominatio. Adopting a realist position, which is, as we said above, akin to material essence realism, the Glosulae claim that “man” signifies the quality, a “universal thing common to all men”, but names individual men.33 Abelard, having denied the existence of universal things, says however that “man” signifies a mental conception, retaining the idea that it names the individual men, adding that it does so because of the same “cause”, that is because they are all men (ibid., p. 19: 713). Universal names have thus for Abelard a dual signification, a signification properly speaking, i.e. the generation of an intellection, which is that of the incorporeal and singular common conception, and a nomination, which is that of corporeal singular individuals (ibid., p. 29: 35-38). Although the universal man was for realists what subsists totally and integrally, at the same time, in many men, the universal name “man” is, for Abelard, a noun which names totally and integrally, at the same time, singular men (tota et integra singulorum sunt eodem tempore nomina, ibid., p. 31: 11-22). The error of the realists is then to have improperly transferred a property which is that of names to things. So, to use Alain de Libera’s words, Abelard showed that what Boethius had rightly stripped from things, could be legitimately given back to nouns (De Libera 1999a, p. 488). To sum up, the common conceptions, which exist eternally in the divine mind according to Priscian, are at the same time the conceptions men can get to by abstraction (i.e. considering the thing apart from its accidents), those to which the mind is directed at when hearing the name. Abelard, in this long and detailed development seems to give the exact answer the ND compiler was looking for: how if these ideas exist in God’s mind can they be signified by

33)

The passage has been edited and commented on many times, first by De Rijk (1967). See the edition from all the known mss. of the Glosulae in Rosier-Catach (forthcoming a), annexe 1.


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men (cf. Y in text [7]): they are known in their purity by God, but in a confused way by men. Abelard gives three authorities to confirm this opinion that universal names signify common conceptions. The last one is that of Plato. But Abelard denies that Priscian’s views are similar to Plato’s, because of the latter’s claim that universals exist “apart from bodies” (praeter corpora subsistere), and because Plato places these forms not in God’s mind but in noys (ibid., p. 24: 2-24). A bit later in the text, however, talking about the intelligible and imaginary composition of matter and form which occurs in one’s mind when hearing a common noun, Abelard carelessly says that these may be assimilated to Plato’s common and special conceptions (ibid., p. 81: 13-22). In his commentary on the Peri Hermeneias, Abelard no longer distinguishes Plato’s view from Priscian’s, explaining that Plato ascribed the “ideas or exemplar forms” to the divine mind, and that they are “incorporeal things” (Sup. Per., p. 314: 13-17), making them the analogue of the imaginary forms in the mind of the craftsman. But in the passage Abelard is talking about the role of imaginary forms, fictitious images, which are intermediaries, used to talk about real things in their absence (a view he will develop further in the De intellectibus), not about the signification of universal names (Sup. Per. p. 315: 30-32). We find the same assimilation between Priscian and Plato in the later Glossulae super Porphyrium (LNPS), when Abelard critically mentions, in the beginning of the discussion and without further elaboration, the view of those who “think that universals are intellectus”: for them Priscian seems to imply that mental conceptions are the universal intellections, whereas Abelard wants to maintain a distinction between the intellections and their content, or object (LNPS, p. 513: 15-514: 6). Abelard also uses a short section of Priscian XVII, 44 in his theological treatises, without any semantic implications, to explain his views on the divine providence and the procession from the Son, by comparison with Plato’s doctrine of Ideas as exemplary forms and to Priscian’s claim that the generic and specific forms exist in God’s mind before they are effected in things, which shows that “the concept of the mind becomes operative while it creates”.34 Thus it is only in the Sup. Porph. that Abelard accepts Priscian’s view, although with a quasi, that universal nouns as proper nouns signify mental conceptions, but in this text he distinguishes the mental conceptions as they are in the human mind from the way they exist in the divine mind, and from Plato’s mental ideas (incorporeal and separated from the bodies). Here, as 34)

Theologia summi boni III, 92; Theologia scholarium II, 168; Theologia christiana IV, 139.

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John Marenbon stated, Abelard defends a view which is both non-realist and non-Platonist. In other texts, as noted above, Abelard will explain the signification of universal names differently. He seems to move away from the need to find some kind of real correlate in reality for universal names, as he stresses more and more the activity of the intellect, which, through its power of discretio and attentio can “attend to” things in a way different from how they really are, thus distinguishing even better the intellection as an act from its content and its object (against the quidam criticized with Priscian in LNPS), and elaborating a general solution for all the cases, including the one of universals, but also of chimeras, rational stones, laughing asses, propositions, and the like, where intellections and utterances do not stand in relation of similitudo to things (Rosier-Catach 2004; King forthcoming).

Conclusions In his article of 1992, Onno Kneepkens suggested that it could not be proved, as Courtenay (1991) or Normore (1987) had suggested, that “the grammatical thought of the Priscian tradition was particularly promoting nominalism”, but also claimed that “grammar turned out to have been neutral to realism and vocalism or nominalism”. This study suggests a different tentative conclusion: “the dominating realist atmosphere” of the late 11th and early 12th century— as Onno Kneepkens calls it—was—at least partially—built on, reinforced by and transmitted through the reading of Priscian’s Institutiones, and was accordingly criticized on issues which had to do with linguistic and semantic problems raised by grammarians. Moreover, the passage on divine ideas provided a new source conveying Platonic views on universals,35 and played a role for questioning the relation between the mental forms, signified by the common noun as a proper noun, as abstracted forms (or universal post rem) and as existing in God’s mind (or universal ante rem). In the Glosulae we found two compatible ways of explaining the signification of the common noun when used as the proper noun for the species or genus: it then signifies (1) the universal as abstracted, thought apart from the singular in which it really subsists; (2) the generic and specific forms, the matter of things, which are the primeval and exemplary forms in the divine mind. The core of Abelard’s criticism is that these common forms or conceptions do not, 35)

It is already found in grammatical glosses connected to Eriugena’s commentary on Priscian, see Luhtala (2000c), and will be found again in the 13th century, see Piché (2005), pp. 194-195.


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contrary to what is stated in text [5], exist in rerum natura, but he accepts, in some passages of Sup. Porph., that they can be the significates of universal nouns, explaining in a very detailed way the problem raised in the ND, how the common conception in God’s mind differ from those in man’s mind. He also answers another question raised by the ND about the equivocal status of the common noun, if it has two significations. The Glosulae claim that the signification of the abstracted universal is secondary, and the signification of the real common universal substance, on which the name has been imposed, is primary. Abelard borrows from Priscian the idea that the universal name is imposed on individuals and also signifies a “common conception” (Sup. Porph. 22: 28-30; 29: 37-38), but for him the “common conception” is only thought, in its purity by God, and in a confused way by men. They all agree that the common noun names the individuals, but also is the “proper name” of the universal (which is a mental conception for Abelard and has real existence for the Glosulae). The unity of the universal entailed some problems for the grammarians, and we saw that the ND tried two different solutions, corresponding to the two realist theories held by William of Champeaux. Further study of the Glosulae and of the ND, in comparison with the testimonies of William on Champeaux’s views, and to the commentaries on the ars vetus of the early twelfth century, will no doubt shed new light on the major controversies of the period.


www.brill.nl/viv

Symbolism and Linguistic Semantics. Some Questions (and Confusions) from Late Antique Neoplatonism up to Eriugena1 Stefania Bonfiglioli and Costantino Marmo Università di Bologna

Abstract The notion of ‘symbol’ in Eriugena’s writing is far from clear. It has an ambiguous semantic connection with other terms such as ‘signification’, ‘figure’, ‘allegory’, ‘veil’, ‘agalma’, ‘form’, ‘shadow’, ‘mystery’ and so on. This paper aims to explore into the origins of such a semantic ambiguity, already present in the texts of the pseudo-Dionysian corpus which Eriugena translated and commented upon. In the probable Neoplatonic sources of this corpus, the Greek term symbolon shares some aspects of its meaning with other words inherited from the ancient tradition, such as synthēma, eikōn, homoiotēs. Some of them, such as eikōn and homoiotēs, belong to the field of images and are associated with linguistic semantics in the Neoplatonic commentaries not only to Plato but also to Aristotle’s logical works. Among the late ancient Neoplatonists, particular attention is paid to Proclus and to his use of the term agalma. In fact, the textual history of this word seems to be a privileged perspective from which to reconstruct the Neoplatonic semantic blending of symbol and image, as well as the main role played by linguistic issues in this conflation. Keywords symbol, image, agalma, Neoplatonism, Eriugena

Eriugena on symbola The translation of the Corpus Dionysiacum and commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy made by John Scottus Eriugena in the second half of the 1) The responsibility for this paper is equally shared by the two authors. Materially, however, Stefania Bonfiglioli wrote the second section (‘Neoplatonic agalmata’), Costantino Marmo the first and third sections (‘Eriugena on symbola’ and ‘Conclusions’). Special thanks are due to Sten Ebbesen, for his help in all aspects of Stefania Bonfiglioli’s work.


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217740

S. Bonfiglioli, C. Marmo / Vivarium 45 (2007) 238-252

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ninth century, brought some innovations to medieval semiotics, first of all in terminology: the word symbolum, which had been previously used in Latin texts (and by Eriugena himself ) as the name for the Creed, is now introduced as a technical term.2 Its connection with the word signum is commonly acknowledged by the theologians of the first half of the ninth century, such as Hrabanus Maurus and Massentius of Aquileia. They say that the word symbolum means both index (indicium) and collection or covenant (collatio, pactum vel complacitum). Its second meaning, according to them, derives from the fact that the Fathers of the Church collected together all the truths of faith in a text, so that these truths could be heard, known and also memorized by illiterate people. A symbol, however, is considered also to be a sign (or index) because it is similar to the military signs that let the warriors of an army distinguish their fellowsoldiers from their enemies.3 The Creed was, therefore, considered important for the identification of a group of people, because of its function of discriminating between true and false believers. In Eriugena’s commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy, the word symbolum keeps its connection with signum, and in some contexts it refers to a special kind of sign. Symbola, he says, are “signs that are sometimes similar to sensible things in a pure way, sometimes are not similar but confused”.4 Following the pseudo-Dionysius, he explains that there are two kinds of symbola: those similar to their meanings (such as the sun as compared to God), and those dissimilar or different from them (such as the worm as compared to Jesus). We will not spend much time on this distinction, that is well known and studied.5 We would like to stress, however, that in Eriugena’s texts there is also a clear semantic connection between terms such

2)

A complete semantic history of the term symbolon-symbolum has not yet been written. One can read some chapters of it, for instance, in Ghellinck (1949), 206-207 (with other bibliographical references to previous works, pp. 273-299), Pépin (1976a), Maestrelli (1976), 793795, and Ladner (1979), 223-233. Chydenius (1960) is not very useful, because he fails to take into account the terms used by the authors themselves. 3) Cf. Hrabanus Maurus, De clericorum institutione, 56, PL 107, col. 396A-B; De universo, 5.13, PL 111, col. 136C; De ecclesiastica disciplina, PL 112, coll. 1217C and 1224D-1225A; Massentius of Aquileia, Collectanea de antiquis ritibus baptismi, 4, PL 106, col. 55B-D; Epistola ad Carolum Magnum de significatu baptismi, 4, PL 106, col. 53A-B (both authors depend on the definition of symbolum given by Isidore of Seville, Etimologiarum sive Originum libri XX, 1906, §19.57). 4) “Signa sensibilibus rebus similia, aliquando ei pura, aliquando dissimilia et confusa” (Eriugena, Expositio in Hierarchiam coelestem, I.2, PL 122, 132C; 1975, 8). 5) See, for instance, Roques (1962, 1967) and Pépin (1976a).

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as symbolum, significatio, typus, allegoria, velamen, visio, imaginatio, agalma, figura, figuratio, forma, umbra, enigma, and all of them share the property of being material or sensible. See, for instance, the following text: He [the pseudo-Dionysius] signified in a variety of ways the above mentioned hierarchies—that are immaterial in nature and above all locations and times, and above all material shapes, forms and compositions [of forms]—making use of material shapes, forms and compositions [of forms] imitating our terrestrial hierarchies, i.e. he multiplied those hierarchies through various visions, symbols, and allegories, taking into account our [cognitive] weakness.6

Commenting on the same text, a few pages later,7 Eriugena puts in opposition the sensible symbols, through which man can get some knowledge of God, and the invisible significations (otherwise called intellectual or intelligible symbols),8 through which the angels get the same knowledge. Between symbol and allegory there seems to be a close semantic connection that might be relevant to clarifying the meaning of the first term, especially if we take into account that the pseudo-Dionysius does not make use of the latter word.9 Eriugena explicitly deals with their relationship in his latest work, his fragmentary commentary on John’s Gospel, trying to work out a clear-cut distinction between symbolum and mysterium. He makes appeal to the distinction between allegoria in dictis (or in verbis) and allegoria in factis, whose origin stems back to Augustine but was clearly formulated by Bede.10 While mysterium is equivalent to both, consisting in “what is handed down according to the allegory of deeds and of words, i.e. it has to do with historical facts and with words because [those facts] are told”.11 As examples he mentions the Taberna-

6) “. . . predictas ierarchias, id est celestes essentias, dum sint naturaliter immateriales, super omnia loca et tempora, super omnes materiales figuras et formas et compositiones, per materiales figuras et formas et compositiones ad similitudinem nostre ierarchie que adhuc in terris est, uarificauit, hoc est in diuersis uisionibus et symbolis et allegoriis multiplicauit, et nostre infirmitati conformauit” (I.3, PL 122, 137B; 1975, 13). 7) I.3, PL 122, 141A; 1975, 17. 8) VII.2, PL 122, 182A; 1975, 103. 9) Cf. Pépin (1976a) 43. 10) Cf. Maierù (1999), 139-140. 11) “Mysteria itaque proprie sunt quae iuxta allegoriam et facti et dicti traduntur, hoc est, et secundum res gestas facta sunt, et dicta quia narrantur . . . Mysteria itaque sunt quae in utroque testamento et secundum historiam facta sunt, et secundum litteram narrata” (In Ev. secundum Johannem, fr. III, PL 122, 344D and 345A; ed. Jeauneau, 352). On this distinction, see also Jeauneau (1972); Pépin (1973).


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cle, which was built and whose building is recounted in the Scriptures, and the practice of circumcision, the typical case of sacrament in the Old Testament. Symbolum, in its proper meaning, is identical with “allegory of words”. The examples Eriugena refers to are not only the poetical metaphors of the Psalms, but also the Parables of the New Testament, where Christ tells stories that did not really happen (non facta), but were likely to happen (quasi facta).12 We would like to underline the fact that this definition of symbol in terms of allegory does not hold for Eriugena’s commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy. In this text, the case of the Tabernacle (together with all the rites and sacraments of the Old Testament) is considered as an example of sensible symbol (whereas the word mysterium, in the same context, is used to refer only to the sacraments of the New Testament).13 It is clear that the distinction Eriugena proposes in his latest work does not apply to his previous ones. According to him, as he has to admit, it does not even apply to the use of the words ‘symbol’ and ‘mystery’ that one can find in the Scriptures, where there is no clearcut distinction between them.14 Furthermore, the sensible or material character of the symbol that he frequently stresses in his commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy does not fit (completely) with the linguistic character of the symbol defined in its proper sense as allegoria dicti. The problem is that in his commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy, following pseudo-Dionysian suggestions, Eriugena appears to conflate in the notion of symbol both types of allegory, mixing up metaphor and allegory into one indistinct concept. Just to add some more confusion, one should remember that Eriugena makes use of expressions such as “omnes mysticas figuras, sive in dictis sive in factis”,15 making clear that the word “allegory” is probably conceived of as synonym of “[rhetorical] figure”. Following a path far from the one suggested, for instance, by Pépin (1976a) who, focusing on the contamination of symbolism by allegory, compared 12)

“Altera forma est, quae proprie simboli nomen accepit, et allegoria dicti, non autem facti appellatur, quoniam in dictis solummodo spiritualis doctrinae, non autem in factis sensibilibus constituitur . . . Simbola vero, quae solum modo non facta, sed quasi facta sola doctrina dicuntur” (In Ev. secundum Johannem, fr. III, PL 122, 345A-B; 1996-2003, 352-354). 13) “Sensibilia autem symbola sunt, quorum intellectum caelestes virtutes contemplantur, veteris legis sacramenta, verbi gratia tabernaculum, et omnia, quae in eo fieri Dominus praecepit, deinde visiones prophetarum in variis formulis atque figuris, postremo ecclesiastica Novi Testamenti mysteria, quorum omnium intimum lumen sancti angeli clare perspiciunt” (Expositio in Hierarchiam coelestem, VII.2, PL 122, 182A-B; ed. Barbet, 103). 14) Cf. In Ev. secundum Johannem, fr. III, PL 122, 345C; 1996-2003, 356. 15) Expositio in Hierarchiam coelestem, II.5, PL 122, 171A; 1975, 52.

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Eriugena’s theories of symbol to the one worked out by the antiqui on allegory and myth, we will try to uncover some of the Neoplatonic roots of this confusion, starting from a Greek key-word that occurs in various pseudo-Dionysian works: the Greek word agalma. As we said above, this word, in Eriugena’s commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy, is tightly linked to the words ‘image’, ‘figure’ and ‘symbol’.16

Neoplatonic agalmata Among the few occurrences of the term agalma in Dionysius’ works, one, in the De divinis nominibus (IX, 1; PG 3: 909b), is in the plural and specified by the unusual epithet theōnymika. The resulting compound expression, which sounds almost as awkward as divine-name images, is curious in its association of linguistic questions with a non-ordinary image, as agalma is.17 But why did Dionysius choose just this latter word, so rare in his works, to characterize a kind of name such as the divine ones? In other words, how, to his mind, did a name work as an agalma? Dionysius is not generous with explanations. Another text, however, may provide us with some clues—a text which may, indeed, have inspired Dionysius. We are referring to a passage in Proclus’ Commentary on the Cratylus (51: 29ff.; 1908, 19: 8ff.):18 [The soul], intending to produce similitudes (homoiotētas) of the things-that-are—similitudes that are to be somehow immaterial and derived from logical being only—and availing itself of the assistance of the linguistic faculty of representation (tēi lektikēi phantasiai)—creates by itself the being of names. Just as telestic, by means of certain symbols and mysterious passwords (dia dē tinōn symbolōn kai aporrhētōn synthēmatōn) makes the divine images (agalmata) we have here similar (makes similar: apeikazei) to Gods and suitable to receive

16) See for instance the following text, where Eriugena gives some explanation about this word, which means image, idol or statue (simulacrum), and is very similar to the represented thing or the model whence it comes: “Agalma autem, ex quo singulari nominatiuo pluraliter agalmata flectitur, multipliciter etiam ab ipsis Grecis intelligitur. Agalma enim dicunt omnem expressam imaginem, quae intuentibus letitiam efficit. Agalma quoque dicunt idolum vel simulacrum, ipsi cuius imago et similitudo est simillimum” (Expositio in Hierarchiam coelestem, II.5, PL 122: 171B; 1975, 52). 17) For the conception of agalma as a particular kind of image, cf. Kerenyi (1962); Criscuolo (1992), the latter expressly referring to Neoplatonic texts. See Bonfiglioli (2006a, 2006b) for a history of this notion in the Platonic tradition. 18) For the relation between Proclus’ and Dionysius’ texts, grounded exactly on the occurrences of the term agalma, see Saffrey (1978).


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divine illuminations, so nomothetic too, in accordance with the same faculty of assimilation (kata tēn autēn aphomoiōtikēn dynamin), produces names as images (agalmata) of things by depicting (apeikonizomenē) the nature of the things-that-are through such-and-such sounds, and once it has produced names, it gives them to men to use.19

Proclus here explicitly employs the concept of agalma to elucidate the essence of names, and the passage is rich in suggesting several connected words that may somehow clarify the matter. Among those words, the two most recurrent ones are i) homoiotēs, recalled too in the adjective aphomoiōtikē attributed to dynamis, and ii) eikōn, implied in both verbs apeikazō and apeikonizō. If the connection here between agalma and eikōn is not entirely direct, it is none the less confirmed by other texts by Proclus, though not expressly devoted to linguistic matters. Thus, in a passage from his Commentary on Plato’s Republic, agalmata occurs in a list which includes pictures, shadows and mirror or water reflections. The feature which agalmata share with the other items lies simply in their being a kind of eikōn.20 Putting aside for the moment the questions expressly concerning agalmata, we should note that the concepts of homoiotēs and eikōn are also used in other Neoplatonic texts about the semantics of names. Both notions are employed by the late-ancient commentators on Aristotle’s Categories when dealing with Aristotle’s example of equivocation at the very beginning of the work. The example is zōion, which has two different meanings, ‘living being’ and ‘picture’, and can be therefore predicated, respectively, either of a man or of a

Cf. the Greek text: “[# $%&'] % ( ’ ) % * + ( , , - % , .(, /’ 0%,, & ( 1 1 / 2 % 3, 4 ' 5 + 6 # 4 * '

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$ , ; < + # 7 4 * 4 4

/4 ) /( * * +

=& 9 ( 4 /) , + ' > &, 8 7?”. 19)

All translations from Greek are ours. In rem publicam (1899, 1901, I, 289: 21ff.): “[ . . .] < @ > ( A %

+ + 9B/' + C A , : [scil: . D ] 9 , " ) * > , + E * : /9 % -

/9 , /( > 8 + * -/ - ; + * - 8

- ”. With regard to the term eikōn, whose meaning we shall try to explain in this paper, we would like to leave it not translated, just choosing to render it, sometimes, by the term ‘copy’, in the contexts where it will be considered in opposition to the term paradeigma. 20)

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drawing.21 From Porphyry onwards, the brief Aristotelian remarks on this matter are made to converge into a broad classification of kinds of equivocation, on which Sten Ebbesen has already observed the influence of a Hellenistic theory about concept-formation.22 Within these discussions, we shall focus on the choice, in most commentaries, of ranking the Aristotelian example under the kind of equivocation by similarity.23 Let us consider, for instance, Porphyry’s interpretation: according to him, one can use the term zōion both for a man, qua animate sensitive substance, and for a gegrammenon, qua homoiōma of an animate sensitive substance.24 There is a first shift from the source: the gegrammenon which Aristotle had probably intended as picture in general, without specifying of whom or what, is now related to man considered as one of the species of zōion. The word ‘similarity’ is appealed to just in order to define this added relation between the two equivocal pragmata.25 But Porphyry goes on: in another passage, he claims that we call by the term ‘man’ both the living man and the statue (andrias) or eikōn.26 A further conceptual shift is here implied, since the equivocal term has become anthrōpos, and the words andrias and eikōn have been added for qualifying the second pragma. Categoriae (1a1ff.): “F? % G , . < * H , I , J 93 C 7 + : 5 ) *

, . < * H , I 5 -* * 3 -

0B : 9KB " , L 0% ? ”.

21)

22)

Ebbesen (1981), 190-193. Following Porphyry (In Cat. 65: 18-20), this kind of equivocation is not by chance but by intention (apo dianoias), as well as the kinds by analogy (kat’analogian), by derivation from the same source (aph’henos), by contribution to the same (pros hen). For the classification of equivocation kinds in Neoplatonic commentaries, cf. also Luna (1990), 82-100. 24) In Aristotelis Categorias (1887, 66: 22ff.): “ M. NO < PQ ( B &( B

. ) ; S. T3 : , .( >U 93 7 + : , -*

* 3 - 0B : 9KB " , ? 5 : < * H V

B ? , : < 7 93 " , C -+ W$%& >7(', : < 93 " , C . - -$)&% >7(,”. 25) We use the latter expression since both Porphyry and Ammonius, for instance, underline, in their Commentaries on Categories (respectively, 60: 15ff. and 18: 15-16), that Aristotle has intended to convey the concept of pragmata through the neuter relative pronoun connected with the adjective “equivocal” (homōnyma), in the first line of the Categories (see note 21). 26) In Aristotelis Categorias (1887, 66: 25ff.): “X <

: " Y Z( , C C 7’ . % , . %, C / 7 ) : 93 : 7 (: + > 7?%, C >U C ‘ 7 A’, ( & E W%& + : - 1 > [ 7 ,

’ C . - A 9 23)

7?%5 : @ 7 : 9 + : \ 4 > 7 ”.


245 [115]

This pictorial overintepretation may have arisen from the conflation of different textual influences. Besides the above mentioned Hellenistic theory, one may also think of some casual remarks by Aristotle to the effect that if ‘man’ is used of a dead or carved or drawn man, this is an equivocal usage.27 But the main source is Plato, we think, and his semantics of names in the Cratylus. In some passages from this work—such as 432b2-d928—names share with pictures (called in the dialogue either zōia or zōgraphēmata) the peculiarity of being eikones in respect of the pragma to which they refer. The pragma in question is a man, in this case the man named Cratylus. Moreover, the semantic connection to their pragma is characterized by the verb aphomoioō, that is by the concept of similarity. While Plato’s influence on these matters of logic remains hypothetical, there can be no doubt, we think, about a genuine Platonic legacy to Proclus’ semantic theories. In the Cratylus passage mentioned above, Plato underlines that an eikōn does not have to be homoion to its pragma in all respects; otherwise, if it were, it would result in a double, not an eikōn. Hence, the eikōn of the Cratylus is grounded on a semantic selection of its model’s qualities, due to an act of interpretation. For this reason, in the Sophist Plato links the similarity of eikones to the concept of heterotēs (otherness, difference): an eikōn can be just like its model in some respects but has to be different from it in some other.29 This is, in our view, the Platonic basis on which it is possible to understand the Neoplatonic conception of eikōn as involving less informational content with respect to the paradeigma from which it derives. It is exactly what 27) The same equivocal usage applies to single organs or parts of the body. Cf. especially De partibus animalium (640b31ff.) and Meteorologica (389b29ff.). For an extempore Aristotelian classification of equivocation by similarity and analogy, see Physica (249a21ff.). 28) Cf. the Greek text: “]^. [ . . .] %( > 4 & ;( # 7(,

* : - < : ` A J - a >9 , >

>U " [ . . .] b’ Y ) L( , J c) + c) % >? , L 7 4 : : & + &, 6 X 9/,

* [ . . .] 0 + B d V W& , A I ' ( %; c) Y + >U

c) % ’ L( : A , \ ) c) ; ce. f) W A , g ]? , c) [ . . .]. ]^. h 8 A , g c) , : 7 Y - 8 G - * , > &1 8 .7 (. * * % , + Y W& > 8 . - : < , : < ”. Among the most recent studies on this passage, see particularly Sedley (2003) 131ff. For the concept of eikōn in the Cratylus, see also Chiesa (1991), 145ff. 29) Cf. Soph. 234b-241e; 264c-268d. For the conception of image (and of its species) which Plato draws in the Sophist, see Rosen (1983), 145ff.; de Rijk (1986), ch. 4; Villela-Petit (1991); Carchia (1997), 52ff.; Bonfiglioli (2006a), ch. 2 and (2006b), 30-36, 48-55.

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Proclus claims in the In Cratylum about the names of human language: because they signify only some features (sēmainein ti: 71: 74; 1908, 32: 4) of their model, they belong at the lowest cognitive rung of Neoplatonist’s hierarchical ladder. The term paradeigma too, typically used in Proclus’ texts in connection with both ontological and cognitive matters, can provide a new link to the same logical tradition mentioned above, just with regard to the relation already considered between two equivocal pragmata. Porphyry had defined one of the two pragmata as an eikōn. Ammonius extends this point by appealing to the relation between an eikōn and its paradeigma in order to exemplify the kind of equivocation by similarity of shape (1895, 22: 8-9) without, however, referring explicitly here to the Aristotelian passage.30 Instead, Philoponus (1898, 17: 8-13), in his first classification of equivocation kinds, and Elias (1900, 140: 21-25) recall the notion of paradeigma/paradigmatic just when dealing with the equivocal term ‘man’, that is with Porphyry’s revision of the Aristotelian example. In both classifications, however, the kind of equivocation by similarity has disappeared, and the example just quoted belongs to the kind aph’henos (see note 23). Following Elias’ Commentary, the equivocation aph’henos can be defined as ‘from a paradigmatic source’, in the case, for instance, of a real (alēthēs) and a drawn ( gegrammenos) man, for the latter is an eikōn of the former. Philoponus had also added to this ‘paradigmatic source’ the adjective aition—causal, that is. Hence, these passages from logical texts, in conjunction with Proclus’ ones, show once again that, in Neoplatonists’ view, the connection of an eikōn to its paradeigma—whether this connection is specified as homoiotēs relation or not—must be read in terms of derivation of an effect from its cause. For this reason, evidently, Philoponus and Elias have considered the kind of equivocation by similarity as indissociable from the kind ‘aph’henos’.31 Nevertheless, returning to the relation copy-model in Proclus, other passages from his In Cratylum make one realize that a name as an agalma cannot be easily confined to the description of eikōn just offered. For example, in the lines immediately preceding those quoted above, Proclus argues (51: 19-29; 1908, 18: 27-19: 8):

30)

The incipit of the Categories had been already commented by Ammonius in In Cat. 21: 4-7. This is confirmed by the fact that Philoponus, in his second classification concerning equivocation (closer to Ammonius’one), reinstates the kind by similarity, but considers it just a subspecies of the kind ‘by derivation from something’ (In Cat. 22: 1ff.). 31)


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Let us briefly tell what the art of creating names is, since the genus of the nomothetic is not entirely included in it. It is in fact clear that in the soul there is a faculty of producing copies (eikastikē dynamis) [ . . .] By means of the same faculty [the soul] by itself makes what is inferior to it similar (verb: exhomoioi) to itself and even to what is better (ta kreittō) than itself: for this reason it creates images (agalmata) of both gods and daemons.32

Agalmata are created in order to improve upon the usual copy-model relation. Unlike the homoiotēs of ordinary eikones, in fact, the similarity of agalma may become a homoiōsis, that means, in our case, a process (marked by the suffix -sis) of assimilation to the causal paradeigma, a way of tending towards what is better, which allows one to climb up the cognitive ladder by more than one rung. Consequently, the list of types of eikones—including agalmata— that we have already met in the Commentary on Plato’s Republic (see note 20) has to involve some differences, at least nuances, between the kinds of images enumerated. This point leads back to Plato, and in particular to the Sophist, where image distinctions are grounded on the varying degrees of falsehood, which any image unavoidably shares in.33 Not by chance, in fact, the last items of Proclus’ list—i.e. shadows and mirror reflections—had been already identified by Iamblichus in the De Mysteriis (II, 10: 20ff.) as phantasmata. With regard to them, Iamblichus and Proclus add nothing new to Plato’s ranking of phantasmata as the worst examples of eikōn, because of their complete falsehood. But something new is introduced by the Neoplatonists when they oppose agalmata to phantasmata, since agalmata are elsewhere defined as the only kind of alēthēs—true—eikōn, qua autoptos/autoptikos—i.e. self-revealing.34 An eikōn, in order to become true as only divine things are, must be so strong as to go beyond its semantic limits of falsehood, that is otherness from

32) Cf. the Greek text: “T < # (4 & (, % L 5 *

-+ - 1 : , 7 , ". C < @ - - $%&1 >4 ) , , . [ . . .] + * ) /’ 0%, -i8 [scil: # $%&j] : 0%4 * , , % , + W : * 0%,, : 7 +

(% 8”. 33) See note 29. For the comparison between the Sophist and other Platonic works—especially Republic 10—on these matters, see Halliwell (2002) ch. 1 and 4; Nightingale (2002). For the passages from the Sophist recalled and interpreted by Proclus in the In rem publicam, cf. Sheppard (1980), 163ff.; Halliwell (2002), 328. 34) Iamblichus attributes to agalma (in the plural form) the adjective autoptikon in the De Mysteriis II, 10: 23. Proclus employs for agalma the adjective alēthes in the In Timaeum (1903-1906, III, 6: 7), even at the superlative degree; the adjective autopton in the In Timaeum (III, 69: 16) and in the In rem publicam (II, 133: 17).

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its model, and, consequently, beyond the identity itself as a mere eikōn. But by what means can agalmata be allowed to become like that? “By means of certain symbola and secret synthēmata”, insofar as they “make them suitable to receive divine illuminations”: this is the answer Proclus suggests in the first In Cratylum passage quoted above. In both Proclus and Iamblichus, the two words symbolon and synthēma have an almost interchangeable meaning,35 and also often occur together, like in the passage just considered. According to the different contexts in which the two authors use them, however, it is possible to point out three distinct ways of conceiving of symbols. We shall call the first way too strong. It consists in seeing the peculiar nature of symbol and synthēma to be that they are understood only by Gods and that they work by themselves without and beyond any human interpretation.36 The second way is, on the contrary, too weak. According to the second way, the meaning of the two words is not distinguished from that of signs, or rather linguistic images, whose creation or explanation depends completely upon human faculties. It is the case, for instance, of several passages from Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic (such as 1903-1906, I, 138: 4ff.), where the interpretation of the symbols of myths is nothing but an allegorical, entirely codified, interpretation. There is also a way in between, which is the Pythagorean one, as reinterpreted by Iamblichus and transmitted to Proclus.37 This way can be exemplified by an excerpt from Iamblichus’ De vita Pythagorica (1937, 23, 103: 5ff.): Pythagoras used to pay great attention whenever someone could wisely describe the inner contents and the mysterious conceptions of the Pythagorean symbols, how much rightness and truth they share in, once they have been unveiled, freed from their (external) riddling stamp, and adapted [ . . .] to the natural nobleness of these philosophers—a nobleness made divine beyond any human imagination [ . . .]. [The members of this school] were not in the habit of making their words quickly intelligible to listeners [ . . .] but, in accordance with the silence about divine mysteries enjoined upon them by Pythagoras’ law, they used secret devices vis-à-vis the uninitiated and covered their mutual exchanges in speech and writing by means of symbols. Unless one can pick out the symbols themselves and unfold and grasp

35)

In agreement with our opinion on the almost interchangeable meaning of the two words, cf. Sheppard (1980), 146, 152. In disagreement with us, instead, cf. Trouillard (1981), 298-299; Cardullo (1985). See also about Breton (1981), 317-318. 36) See, for instance, Iamblichus, De Mysteriis (1966), II, 11: 20ff. 37) For the Pythagorean legacy on Iamblichus’ and Proclus’ conception of symbol, cf. Dillon (1976), 249ff.


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them by means of serious interpretation, their utterances are bound to sound ridiculous and insane to any listener, and full of nonsense and empty talk.38

Only the last lines of this passage clarify what Iamblichus means by the symbolic veils or stamps (typoi, the latin figurae) covering the inner core of the utterances of the Pythagoreans.39 Through such figurative expressions Iamblichus conveys the need for interpreting symbols on two different levels. The first level, the serious one according to the Neoplatonic author, is reached only by the few sharing the elitist code of the Pythagorean school. The second one is accessible to the majority of people, but cannot go beyond a more superficial interpretation of the utterances, unable as it is to recognize them as symbola. It follows that symbolic questions are not concerned here with a distinct kind of signs named symbola. Instead, they deal with a way of conceiving certain signs, whether eikones or utterances or so on, qua symbola, that is as liable to be interpreted according to two different codes. Just this Pythagorean legacy may have motivated the Neoplatonic association of the words symbolon and synthēma. Before its occurrences in Neoplatonic texts, synthēma is in fact a word belonging in particular to the historiographical tradition, where it means “password”, especially military password. As such, it is a form which had currency within a narrow (military) circle and its elitist interpretation of certain signs. Recognizing a sign as a symbol does not, however, imply disconnecting its meaning from the conventionalism shared by any interpretative code which can be varied, taught and learned by any number of people.40 The difference 38) Cf. the Greek text: “[ . . .] * D%72 ( %, -)& , L 7? / * D%7 % -/ + '% -

, C( 7( + (7 &% %/7 8 + A > ?% - %7 7 8 )%, 7 8 < [ . . .] 8 / / ) /%k + 7( % 2 (7% ( , /m G X & -+ 4 0 , 7 -

% 2 1 7’ # 7. QX < E A * : 8 7 , # 8 < >7(8 > -+ * 7 E % : 7 7 ”.


251 [121]

In Dionysius, symbola share with eikones the adjective ‘sensible’ (aisthēta) and the link to words such as ‘variety’ (poikilia) and ‘multiplicity’ (plēthos, recalled by the verb plēthynō in the passage just quoted). They are thus characterized in terms which Iamblichus and Proclus had reserved for eikones, i.e. for the signs related to the lowest step of human knowledge. In Dionysius, then, eikones share with symbols the verb anagein, which Iamblichus and Proclus had reserved for symbolic ascent. Consequently, from Dionysius onwards, the conception of symbols is subject to an even greater confusion between symbols proper and eikones, and in fact it becomes impossible to keep the two notions apart. It is no coincidence, we think, that it was the same kinds of signs that Proclus, while avoiding Dionysian terminological blending, had already fused into agalmata, especially in the linguistic context of the Commentary on the Cratylus.

Conclusions The examination of some probable sources of the pseudo-Dionysian corpus leads us to some provisional conclusions. First of all, both images and symbols are characterized, in the pseudoDionysian works, by their materiality or sensible quality, and both share an anagogical function according to Eriugena: these features place the Eriugenian symbols at the first level of the materialis manuductio (which translates the Greek phrase hylaia cheiragōgia) that can lead believers to the knowledge of God. The word agalma, because of its meaning of “divine-name image”, seems to play a pivotal role towards the blending of so many different types of signs and ways of signification. Secondly, the excerpt from Iamblichus’ De vita Pythagorica has shown that the Pythagorean conception of symbol, in general, suggests a connection between terms such as symbolon, typos (stamp, but also figure) and parapetasma (veil). The influence of Neoplatonic sources seems particularly relevant in some texts where Eriugena stresses the need to go beyond the sensible features of sacred symbols and figures (also in the sacrament) to grasp divine truth: he addresses his criticism not only against those who are only interested in a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, but also against some “new” theologians, such as Paschasius Radbertus, who held that the Eucharistic bread and wine, that hide the physical presence of Christ’s body and blood, exemplify a particular kind of signs which are identical with their meanings. Paschasius’ interpretation of the Eucharistic rite was aimed at making understandable (and

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almost perceptible) the mysteries of the incarnation and of the Eucharistic presence to a large number of mainly illiterate people—and it also used to this end a dossier of Eucharistic miracles. By contrast, in line with his Neoplatonic sources, Eriugena stresses the esoteric function of symbols and sacraments, whose meaning only a few learned persons can attain.43 Finally, the meaning of synthēma as a military password goes in the same direction. With reference to this feature, we would like to stress the unexpected link between the commonly adopted definition of symbolum (as Creed) we started with above and the concept of synthēma: this suggests another path to follow through the Patristic sources of the Synods where the Creed was defined as symbolon.

43)

On the ninth-century Eucharistic debate, see Marmo (2003) and (2005) for further bibliographical references.


www.brill.nl/viv

“Utrum idem sint dicere et intelligere sive videre in mente”: Robert Kilwardby, Quaestiones in librum primum Sententiarum1 Mary Sirridge Louisiana State University

Abstract In his Questions I, qq. 35-36 Sent. Robert Kilwardby asks whether divine understanding (intelligere) is the same as the divine speaking (dicere), as Anselm says in Monologion, ch. 63, just as for us mental speaking (mentis locutio) is the same as the thinker’s examination (inspectio cogitantis) or mental seeing (videre in mente). His answer is that neither for us nor for God is the equation correct, because understanding lacks an essential characteristic of speech, i.e. referentiality, and because speaking is active and understanding passive, which is reflected in the meanings (impositiones) and grammatical functions (modi significandi) of the corresponding expressions. Kilwardby does concede in his discussion of the speech of angels in II Sent. q. 56 that when inner speech does occur, and remains internal, it amounts to thought, though with the additional element of referentiality. I suggest that Kilwardby is unwilling accept Augustine’s theory that thought is inner speech, as Anselm does, because it would require him to reject Aristotelian-style philosophical psychology. Keywords Anselm, speech of angels, divine Word, modes of signifying

In his Questions on Book I of the Sentences I,2 Robert Kilwardby asks whether divine understanding (intelligere) is the same as the divine speaking (dicere), 1)

Research for this paper was generously supported by an A.C. Mellon grant from the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library of St. Louis University. I follow the orthography of the published text of Kilwardby’s commentary on the Sentences, and of Schmaus’s edition: S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, even at the cost of inconsistencies of capitalization with respect to divine names. 2) Kilwardby (1968). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217759

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M. Sirridge / Vivarium 45 (2007) 253-268

as Anselm says in Monologion, ch. 63; following Anselm’s wording more precisely,3 he asks whether for God it is the same to speak (dicere) as to “gaze upon something by thinking” (cogitando intueri), just as for us mental speaking (mentis locutio) is the same as the thinker’s examination (inspectio cogitantis) or mental seeing (videre in mente) (I Sent., q. 36, 372-8). The identification of speaking and understanding seems improbable, he points out, even if there can be no real distinction in being or operation in God, since speaking and understanding are different by nature and definition. Kilwardby’s resolution (I Sent., q. 36, 425-30) is that if we attend to what is properly meant by speaking (loqui) and understanding (intelligere), to speak (dicere) is not the same as to gaze upon something by thinking (cogitando intueri) or to understand (intelligere). Kilwardby’s answer is unexpected for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he seems elsewhere in this same work to accept the characterization of thought as a kind of inner speaking. In the preceding question, speaking of the Trinity (I Sent., q. 35), he argues: In a mind that is always contemplating itself there are are always these three: the begetter, the begotten, and the mutual love joining them . . . This second premise is proved according to what Augustine says, thought (cogitatio) is a word born from the knowledge (notitia) in memory . . . Augustine teaches that thought is a word born of the knowledge (notitia) in memory in De Trinitate XV, c. 24 [=De trin. 15.x. 19] as follows: “Necessarily when we speak of what we know, there is born from the knowledge (notitia)4 we have in memory a word that is of exactly the same sort as the knowledge (scientia) from which it is born. And thus the thought (cogitatio) formed from the thing we know (scimus) is a word that we say in the heart.” You must understand that Augustine is not speaking here about the spoken word or spoken language, but about the mental word. Anselm says the same in Monologion, ch. 48: “The word of the thing is the thought itself formed in the likeness of the thing from memory” (I Sent., q. 35, 126-42).

3)

Anselm (1968), 73. The wording of De trin. XV.x.19 is “ex ipsa scientia quam memoria tenemus.” Though ‘notitia’ occurs in De trin. XV, it is the preferred terminology of the verbum-theory of De trin. IX. The basic terminology of Kilwardby’s own discussion is: videre, intelligere, cogitare/cogitatio and dicere or loqui; the last two expressions he seems to use interchangeably, often giving both conjoined by sive. Frequently, at least, he uses cogitare to indicate the process of thinking, and intelligere for the simple grasping of a concept; cogitatio is used indifferently for thinking, having a thought, and the thought itself. Anselm’s formulation from Monologion, ch. 62 adds the relatively undefined and nontechnical inspectio and intueri to the mix; Kilwardby himself seems to use intueri consistently for cases in which the mind searches for or finds something within itself (cf. II Sent, q. 41; I Sent., q. 62, 118-123). 4)


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And in his commentary on the second book of the Sentences,5 discussing the speech of angels (locutio spiritualis angelorum) he appears to accept the argument that goes: since the human spiritual word (verbum spirituale) is thought, as Augustine says, the speech of angels must likewise just be their thought (II. Sent., q. 56, 7-10). As these examples indicate, the thought of Augustine casts a long philosophical and theological shadow over Kilwardby’s entire commentary on the Sentences; he is clearly familiar with Augustine’s verbum-theory of thought and understanding, and with the identification of inner thought, inner vision and thought or understanding that finds its most explicit expression in De Trinitate XV. He has appropriated Augustine’s distinction between external words and the verbum cordis, between language as an external system of signifiers and an internal domain of the signified from which external language takes its meaning and its capacity for denotating things. Whatever the Stoics themselves meant by distinguishing spoken and written language from lekta,6 Augustine’s acute consciousness of the distinction between a system of external signifiers and what they signify internally looks back to this Stoic distinction, even if the characterization of the signified as internal language is a Porphyrian twist.7 One obvious source of such ideas was the work of the stoicizing grammarians and rhetoricians with whom Augustine was familiar; whatever their exact intellectual antecedents, these theorists consistently assumed the existence of a complex structure of meanings that underlies the (more or less adept and grammatical) utterances of spoken and written language.8 Kilwardby himself would also have drawn a generally Stoic orientation to meaning and semantics directly from the stoicizing grammarian Priscian by way of his own work as a grammarian. Priscian Minor (Priscian, 1859) announces its subject as the construction of the well-formed or “perfect” statement (oratio perfecta) (IG .XVII. 3); in a famous passage, it traces this grammatical well-formedness to the meaning of the words (intellectus vocis) intended by speakers and understood by hearers (IG XVII.187). In his commentary on 5)

Kilwardby (1992). A.C. Lloyd (1971), 63-66, defends the view that Stoic lekta were the theoretical equivalent of Aristotle’s concepts; according to A.A. Long (1971), ontologically speaking lekta are placed somewhere between the merely mental and the external realities to which language refers. For a similar explanation, see also Ebbesen (2004). 7) Cf. Ebbesen (2005a) for a general discussion of basic Stoic themes and their permutations in the Middle Ages. 8) For a discussion of Stoic semantics and grammar, cf. Ebbesen (2005a), 68-70; Colish (1985), 184-189; Long (1971). 6)

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Priscian Minor, Kilwardby adopts the view, common among medieval grammarians, that such meanings can be conveyed from person to person because there is an established inventory of vocabulary assignments and combinatorial possibilities.9 Even deliberately deviant constructions, the various figurae, are to be explained in terms of exploiting this inventory (Sirridge 1990). It is, of course, a considerable jump from a stoicizing theory about linguistic meaning to psychological verbalism, i.e., from holding that complete and grammatical statements will be just those that have a certain kind of structural correspondence with complete thoughts to the view that thinking and thoughts are essentially linguistic. Augustine, however, made just this leap in De Trinitate; at least this is surely how Anselm understood Augustine’s position. If Kilwardby is nosing out from under Augustine’s long shadow, then some other element in the mix of his original or inherited ideas is outweighing Augustine’s influence. There are, I think, two such elements. First, the Stoic-inspired theory that thought is inner speech has come up against the predominantly passive picture of sensation, memory and cognition favored by Aristotelian-style philosophy of mind; Kilwardby is understandably loath to depart from the best scientific orthodoxy of his time. Secondly, it is Kilwardby’s view that we cannot say that verbs of speaking and verbs of knowing mean the same thing, strictly speaking, because to do so erodes their meanings and grammatical functions; the farther expressions get from their proper meanings, the greater the danger that they will become meaningless altogether.

Eighty-One Sons of God and Still Counting It having been established in the previous question that there are at least three divine persons, Question 36 asks: Whether there can be more than three? The structure of Question 36 is extremely complex. The question begins with four lengthy positive arguments that there can be at most three divine persons. These arguments are fairly predictable: Suppose there is a fourth person; since the divine persons differ only with respect to origin, that person must be distinguished either as God that comes from God or God from whom God comes; if it is God from whom God comes, there is already one of these, from whom the supposed fourth person is indistinguishable, etc. There is a series of eight main objections to these opening arguments. In the course of the second of these objections, the one Kilwardby says has to do specifically with

9)

Cf. Ebbesen (1983), 68-73; Ebbesen (2004); Sirridge (1988, 1995).


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the identification of the Son as Word, we find an argument ending with the perverse conclusion that there are eighty-one—or perhaps an infinite number— of sons of God, and as many Holy Spirits: But it seems that there are here many Words, and thus many Sons. For each of the three speaks itself and the other two. But there are as many words as there are things said, and for any given thing spoken about there are as many words spoken about the thing as there are speakers. Likewise10 if several men think the same thing there seem to be as many words of the heart as there are thinkers; and if anyone thinks several things, there are in his heart as many words as there are things thought. But Anselm maintains in Monologion 62, where he treats this question, that each of the three says itself and the other two. And the same conclusion follows from his words in c. 35, i.e., that “for the highest Spirit speaking is the same as understanding.” Again, c. 32: “For Him, to speak and to understand are the same.” And further on in the same chapter: “If it knows itself eternally, then it says itself eternally.” And so, just as each of the three knows itself and the other two, so it speaks itself and the other two. And so there seem to be at least nine Words, but really an infinite number if you like. This is because each of the nine says itself and the others, just as before; and whoever speaks does so with a word, because whoever says a word also says with a word whatever he says. Thus there will be nine times nine Words, and as a result as many Sons, and so on to infinity (I Sent., q. 36, 224-39).

By the way, he adds, there will also be an infinite number of Holy Spirits, for one will proceed from each Father and Son pair! It is within the context of this this objection that Kilwardby argues that speaking and understanding are demonstrably not the same, either for us or for God. Without the crucial identification of inner speaking and thinking, the fact that each member of the Trinity thinks itself and the others does not lead to a proliferation of divine Words. Kilwardby’s discussion of whether understanding is identical with inner speaking is complicated by the fact that Anselm’s Monologion is involved here, as it was in the discussion of the previous objection.11 In this second objection, 10)

Et]quia MW +Schneider. Monologion, which Kilwardby is following, has placed after ‘quot sunt cogitantes: ‘quia in singularum cogitationibus verbum eius est’ (Mon. 62, 72). 11) The conclusion of Kilwardby’s first objection runs: “Item ex hoc videtur quod Pater sit alicuius filius et alicuius spiritus, et quod Filius sit alicuius pater et alicuius spiritus, et similiter de Spiritu Sancto quod sit alicuius pater et alicuius filius” (I Sent., q. 36, 215-217). As he notes, this question is nearly identical to the question Anselm poses in Monologion 61 (Anselm 1968, 71). Kilwardby adds a second undesirable result of Anselm’s claim: “ibi sit trina memoria, trina intelligentia et trina dilectio, et sic trinus Pater, trinus Filius, trinus Spiritus Sanctus” (I Sent., q. 36, 213-215. This argument is not explicit in the Monologion 61 (Anselm 1968, 71), though Anselm concludes his answer to the question with, “Quid igitur prohibet concludi quia unus tantum est in summa essentia pater, unus filius, unus spiritus, et non tres patres aut filii aut spiritus?” (Mon. 61, 72).

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the reasoning of the Monologion has again been used in setting up the objection: If, as Anselm says in the Monologion, each of the three persons understands itself and the others, and if for God it is the same to speak as to understand, then if a divine Word is the Son, we must ask why there are not nine Sons of God—and indeed there will actually be nine-times-nine Sons of God if each of the nine thinks itself and the other eight, and so on to infinity. Anselm himself posed this question, Kilwardby adds.12 Then, as in the case of the first objection, Kilwardby offers an answer that is a paraphrase of Anselm’s own answer from Monologion c. 63 (Mon.182-4): Since divine knowing or understanding is not done by each person individually, though each thinks or understands, there is only one divine knowing and one divine understanding, not three; and since the divine understanding is identical with divine speaking, just as our thinking is identical with our mental speech, there is also only one divine speaking; and since the divine speaking speaks the divine nature, the divine speaking really speaks only one divine Word. As before, the Anselmian answer gives rise to further objections: Even if the divine activities are in reality identical,13 nonetheless if we go by the meaning of the words used (intentiones verborum) and how we understand them (rationem intelligendi), Anselm is wrong to suppose as he clearly does, that divine speaking is identical with divine understanding. [1] To speak is to point to or refer to something, but understanding is a kind of vision. Making a comparison with seeing, speaking has to do with the thing already seen, and understanding with what is going on in the person doing the seeing. [2] If we take the isomorphism with bodily activities at all seriously, then like external speaking, inner speaking has the character of an action; and hearing is the kind of being acted upon that corresponds to speaking. If inner hearing and inner seeing are the same, as Augustine says they are in De Trinitate (=XV.x.18), and if understanding is inner seeing, then understanding will be inner hearing. Thus it seems that understanding and inner speaking are opposites by definition; and if they are, then Anselm is wong to say that say that in the supreme Spirit, this kind of speaking is nothing but grasping by thinking (cogitando intueri), just as the speech in our minds is nothing but the gaze of the the apprehension of the thinker (inspectio cogitantis) (I Sent., q. 36, 372-386.).

Kilwardby’s answer is brief and to the point. Anselm is wrong, if he means what he says literally. For if we are speaking and thinking strictly and correctly, inner 12)

Anselm’s conclusion in Monologion 62 (Anselm 1968, 73) is less elaborate than Kilwardby’s, but the intent is the same: “Hac itaque ratione videntur in illa esse non solum multi patres et filii et procedentes, sed et aliae necessitudines” (Mon. 62, 73). 13) idem]om. WM+Schneider.


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speaking and understanding or “grasping by the thinking” are not the same. Nevertheless the two activities do run together towards one real act of grasping or knowledge (ad unam actualem contemplationem vel cogitationem concurrunt), and somehow they flow together to single end, as if from opposing directions (quasi ex adverso) Perhaps this is what Anselm meant, Kilwardby adds; or perhaps he meant to refer to the divine unity of essence (I Sent., q. 36, 425-30).

The Inner Word and the Speech of Angels Matters have not been settled in Question 36. The reasoning of Anselm has been dismissed, and with it the threat of eighty-one or more divine Words. But the dismissal comes at a price, for if the Father’s speaking forth of the Word cannot be glossed in terms of his self-understanding, it becomes unclear what the Father, and only the Father is doing when he begets the Word, and only the Word and why the Word should be called a word at all. These problems are taken up in subsequent objections (I Sent., q. 36, 394-411). Kilwardby addresses the problems by appealing to distinctions between speaking in the strict and proper sense (proprie) and speaking loosely or improperly (communiter sive improprie) (I. Sent., q. 36, 431-95). It is in fact difficult to see how this distinction helps to distinguish the speaking proper to the Father from a speaking more loosely common to all three divine persons. But if our interest is mainly in Kilwardby’s relationship to his Augustinian-Stoic source material, there is a more pressing question: If Kilwardby rejects the identification of inner speech and thinking or understanding, then what is to be made of the passages in which he seems to accept Augustine’s verbum-theory? What are we to make of Kilwardby’s discussion in I Sent. q. 35 of how the Father generates the Son, where Kilwardby has quoted with apparent approval Augustine’s identification of inner vision and inner speech from De Trinitate XV.x.10. In. Q. 35 he makes no attempt to gloss or reinterpret Augustine’s words, perhaps because nothing inconvenient follows upon the identification of inner speech and thinking or understanding. But in I Sent. q. 36, where the identification is called sharply into question, the reading Kilwardby has tentatively assigned to Anselm’s position is offered explicitly as a gloss on what Augustine says in De Trinitate XV: “Speech is one thing and vision another when they are done outwardly through the body, but inwardly, when we think, both are one (Aliud est locutio et aliud visio, quando foris per corpus fiunt, intus autem cum cogitamus, utrumque unum est)” (De trin. XV.x .10). What Augustine meant to say in De Trinitate XV, it is proposed, was that mental speaking and vision “run together into a single knowledge and are one

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in this sense” (in unam coeunt cogitationem, et sic sunt unum) (I. Sent. q. 36, 388-393). We have not the time to make a complete assessment of Kilwardby’s reading of De Trinitate XV; but we can make a start by asking what Kilwardby means by this somewhat mysterious claim that inner speech and inner vision or knowing “combine forces” or “flow together” or “come together as if from opposite directions to bring about a single knowledge or thought.” And here, it seems, we are in luck, for in Question 35, in the course of demonstrating that there are at least three divine persons, Kilwardby offers a fairly detailed account of the workings of the mind, ostensibly directed to showing how we should understand the generation of the Word by the Father. The account starts from a quotation from De Trinitate XV that “when we speak, that is when we speak what we know, from that knowledge that we hold in memory there is born a word which is exactly of the same sort as the knowledge from which it is born. Indeed, the thought formed from the thing which we know is a word that we speak in our heart.” (De trin. XV.x.19). In corporeal things, Kilwardby continues, true motion or action occurs when a natural agent introduces into matter or draws out of the potentiality of matter a form similar to its own; we have generation when the natural action of an agent results in a single composite of matter and form. The process of perception is similar, though here there is no real action, as Aristotle says in De Anima III; here the sensible as agent (sensibile agens) impresses its likeness on the sense power, bringing about an alteration, so that the sense power in act (sentiens in actu) is what is generated by the sensible species that makes the impression. What happens in the thinking or knowing mind is exactly parallel. The “gaze of the mind” (acies mentis) that is not yet thinking has the power to know or understand, and in memory there is lodged the knowable thing itself (rem cognoscibilem) or some likeness of it that is potentially knowable or thinkable. When the “gaze of the mind” that is thinking or understanding turns to the image in memory, that image remains in memory, just as the object of sense remains while it is being sensed. And so . . . memory conjoined with the gaze of the mind makes that gaze like itself by impressing upon it the likeness it has within itself (not by sending forth from itself the likeness it has in it, but by impressing one similar to its own upon the gaze of the mind.) So there is the likeness in memory that impresses and the likeness impressed upon the gaze of the mind, and a single offspring is made from the impressed likeness and the gaze of the mind; this is understanding (intelligentia). In sensing the sensible form remains in its matter after its likeness has disappeared from sense upon the sense turning aside to sense another object, and the sense power in act is once again born from this sensible form when the sense power


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turns back to it; just so, in the intellect the intelligible species remains in memory after the likeness that it impressed on the gaze of the mind has perished from the mind’s gaze because the gaze of the mind turns towards thinking something (cogitandum) else, and then once again understanding is born from it when the gaze of the mind turns back towards it (I Sent., q.35, 145 . . . 176).

Kilwardby seems to think he has given a flat and incontestable account of the verbum-theory of De Trinitate. And indeed, some key elements from De Trinitate are in evidence here, most notably the “gaze of the mind.” We also find Augustine’s notion of memory as a broadly representative power. As Kilwardby notes elsewhere, this power differs from the Aristotelian understanding of memory as a storehouse of past sense images in two important respects: there is memory of things known, not just of things sensed; and memory functions as a representative power even in occurrent perception and thought.14 What we do not find in Kilwardby’s account, however, is a connection to an Augustinian verbum-theory. In this key passage, we do not find an attempt to connect the explanation of how understanding is begotten or formed from memory with the genesis of some inner word. At no point does Kilwardby announce firmly: And here there is begotten a word.15 It is significant, I think, that the Augustinian terminology that Kilwardby fills into his causal account is drawn in the main from Augustine’s account in De Trinitate XI.iii-ix and XIV.iii,vi, where Augustine is occupied with presenting the visual model of cognition, and not from IX.vii-ix and XV.x-xi, where he presents the verbal model. In fact, in substance, the account Kilwardby gives here is closer to De Anima than to De Trinitate. The shift to generatio/genitum terminology allows Kilwardby to substitute an Aristotelian-style account of motion, change,

14)

In I Sent., q. 62, 50-105, Kilwardby gives a full discussion of the Augustinian notion of memory, which includes both “memoria brutalis,” which we share with lower animals, and “memoria rationalis.” Rational memory is again divided into a lower sort of rational memory, which records the “imagines rerum corporalium per sensus adquisitas de quibus est visio spiritualis sive imaginativa,” and a higher memory of spiritual, incorporeal things (spiritualia de quibus est visio intellectualis.) Rational memory both precedes understanding and retains things that have been understood. Cf. also I. Sent., q. 59, 102-111. 15) That he means to defer this announcement until the next section on the “mutual love copulating begetter and begotten” is unlikely, as this later section is obviously already intended as an illustration of procession, which has to do with the of the holy spirit. And as Kilwardby would know, at De trin. IX.x.15, Augustine distinguishes between two kinds of inner word, one of which is present whenever something is known or thought of.

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sensation, and cognition; there is, for example, no trace here of Augustine’s consistently held view that the mind sends the senses out for information (De trin.IX.iii3: XI.iv.7), or of his view that the concepts of the mind, many of which precede empirical experience, inform the data of sensation from the start (De trin. X.v.7). More generally, despite some Augustinian talk about “aversion of the sense” and “conversion of the mind to thinking something else,” lifted more or less directly from De Trinitate XI.iii-ix, for Kilwardby sensation and cognition are not active powers, as they are for Augustine. For Kilwardby, sense sensing and the mind thinking or knowing are, of course, in act; but they are expressly designated as “what is generated.” They are thus at most re-active, because they are put into act by the species expressed and impressed upon them by the object of sense and the object of thought lodged in memory, respectively. Only the roving “acies mentis” has an Augustinian sound, though this terminology really comes from the visio-theory of De Trinitate XIV. Kilwardby seems to think that he has given a way of reading Augustine that is essentially compatible with Aristotelian psychology. Arguably, he has not, though his knowledge of Augustine’s thought is extensive and subtle.16 For Augustine, the idea that thought or understanding is an inner word had an integral part to play in a theory of mind, divine and human, that was essentially active; presenting understanding as formation of an inner word was Augustine’s first step in establishing thinking as inner speech.17 The verbumtheory does not play a corresponding role in Kilwardby’s psychology. Kilwardby gives us no account of how the inner word is formed or of what makes it a word; and so his interpretive claim that Augustine means to say that understanding and inner speaking “come together as if from different directions to bring about a single knowledge or thought” remains a mere promisory note. Kilwardby’s discussion of the speech (locutio) of angels in his commentary on the second book of the Sentences (II. Sent., q. 56), is another instance of his 16)

Kilwardby’s “Tabulae,” in which he summarizes book by book and explains some thirty-one works of Augustine, probably postdates his commentary on the Sentences (Callus 1948, 255263). But his commentary on the Sentences gives evidence of a good deal more acquaintance with Augustine’s works than the knowledge that Stone (2001) assigns to most thirteenth-century figures: “a few standard treatises . . . and abundant quotations that circulated under his name” (Stone, 2001, 255-256). 17) Sirridge (1999) argues that Augustine did intend in De trin. XV to argue for the identification of thought and inner language, and not for the less extreme theory Kilwardby ascribes to him that inner speech amounts to thought, and that inner speech and inner vision (or thought or understanding) combine to produce a complete actual act of contemplation or understanding.


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seeming to accept the identification of thought and inner speech. Here the larger context is the question of what happens when angels are “sent” to make announcements and the like. The particular question concerns the speech of angels, not when they speak “by the bodies they assume, but their spiritual speech” (II. Sent., q. 56, 5-6). It is argued that such angelic speech must amount to angelic thought (cogitatio)—because angels resemble us with respect to their spiritual intellects, and a fortiori with respect to their spiritual words, so that their spiritual words amount to thoughts, just as ours do, as Augustine says in De Trinitate XV (II. Sent., q. 56, 5-10). It is then objected that if angels’ thoughts were speech, since speech serves essentially to make determinations of one’s will manifest to others, angelic thoughts would immediately be broadcast every which way, so that lower angels would know everything the higher ones know (II. Sent., q. 56, 16-19). To this counterargument, Kilwardby responds with a distinction between (i) spiritual speaking that is just thought, i.e., speaking absolutely, in oneself and contained within one self; and (ii) spiritual speaking directed to another and thus made manifest, in which something is thus added to thought itself.18 God’s thoughts are always in a sense contained within himself; even when He speaks to a soul or an angel, He thinks what He thinks (suum cogitare), and does not undergo change—and accordingly (juxta quod ) at a certain point in the temporal order Jonah apprehends that God is telling him to go on a mission. Creatures sometimes just talk to themselves in the absolute sense, within themselves; and then their spiritual speech is just thought. But they always speak to each other in the second way, so that on the side of the speaker something is added to the thought, namely expressing or manifesting it (superaddit locutio super cogitationem); on the side of the hearer there is also an effect, namely that the hearer’s mind apprehends in one way or another (impressio aliqua in audiente) what the speaker wants it to apprehend. It looks initially as if Kilwardby is just equivocating on dicere/loqui by saying that inner speech is the same as thinking, as Augustine says, except when it is more than thinking, i.e., when the thinking is communicated. He is, I think, doing a bit more than this. He is first trying to explain how angels’spiritual speech can amount to thought without every thought of every angel being known to every other angel. His explanation is that sometimes angels just talk

18)

II. Sent., q. 56, 23-25: “Solutio. Est loqui dupliciter, vel in se et absolute apud ipsum dicentem et haec est cogitatio, vel relatum ad alterum secundum quod est manifestatum et sic superaddit aliquid super cogitationem.”

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to themselves, just as we talk to ourselves, “contained in ourselves.” Kilwardby is on firm enough phenomenological ground in saying that for us such “spiritual speech” is nothing more than thought. It is hard to see why things should be different for angels, since, as Kilwardby sees it, angels have matter and individual Augustinian memory (though no senses), in which they have representations of individuals located in space-time, just as we do.19 But sometimes we talk to others; and given our embodiment, this will involve something more, namely making our thoughts manifest to them in some corporeal way. In their spiritual speech to other creatures, angels are essentially similar to us; they, too, have to add an element of directing and manifesting their thoughts, though this will not involve physical speaking.20 And thus, although their spiritual speech to others is thought, it is thought with direction or relationality added to it. Kilwardby’s undertaking is ambitious; this account is intended also to explain how God can speak to His creatures, e.g., how he can send Jonah on a mission or send the Angel Gabriel to speak to Mary, which happens at a particular time, when in God there is only unchanging thought. Here the answer seems to be that some of God’s thoughts, too, have a direction. They have this direction eternally, and God thinks his thoughts about Jonah and his mission eternally, and God’s thought is eternally directed to Jonah-at-a-time. And at that point in time a creature like Jonah or Gabriel gets the impression of being spoken to by God. But if this is what Kilwardby is up to in II. Sent., q. 56, then the issues under discussion here are different from those of I. Sent, qq. 35-36, though 19)

Kilwardby comes close to accepting the knowability of singulars in his earlier De Ortu Scientiarum (Kilwardby 1976); cf. Sirridge (1988), 15-18. II. Sent., q. 37, 94-131, “De scientia daemonum naturali et angelorum ,” shows that he now fully accepts knowledge of singulars qua individuals, very likely because he now has fully at his disposal Augustine’s distinction between higher and lower kinds of knowledge. 20) Kilwardby’s view resembles that of Aquinas to some extent. In order to speak spiritually to humans and other angels, angels have to direct or “utter” their thoughts to their hearers. But if Aquinas has angels communicating by angelic telephone (Panaccio, 1999, 325), Kilwardby has them sending graphic images to each other via their videophones; their images are like ours, except that their images of things are directly caused by God, and not by the things of which they are images. But unlike Aquinas (Panaccio, 1999, 230), Kilwardby does not hold that angelic minds are transparent, for they have spiritual matter. Because of their great “subtlety” (subtilitatem) and simplicity, they can make themselves immediately present to other minds and penetrate into the inmost depths of another thinker (this is how demons find out what people are thinking as well.) With other angels, then, they can impress their images on the other angel’s mind, as they do with humans, or they might just somehow direct the other angel’s attention to those of its own infused species the first angel wants it to think about (II. Sent., q. 42, 5-11).


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not completely unrelated to them. Kilwardby is not saying here that all thought is inner speech, let alone that they are the same thing, but rather that when inner speech stays within, it amounts to thought. Direction to another mind or the intention to manifest a thought is something added to thought that is already inner speech in the absolute sense. The intention to manifest a thought is thus inessential to its being spiritual speech. The mode of the manifestation is even further removed from the essential. We have here an excellent example of one of Kilwardby’s favorite strategies: “speaking” in itself or taken absolutely has the same meaning for God, angels and humans, the relevant differences being dependent on how certain relations, themselves not essential to speaking, are realized. This position on inner speech is consistent with what Kilwardby says in his commentary on the first book of the Sentences. The issue at that point was whether thinking (cogitare) or understanding (intelligere) is exactly the same as inner speech. It is significant that understanding (intelligere) is not in play in the discussion of the speech of angels in II. Sent. q. 56, where Kilwardby resolutely uses cogitatio/cogitare. This discussion thus leaves open the possibility that understanding is inner vision, and therefore is not inner speech at all, and for that matter that some thought is not inner speech. Indeed the two discussions are to some extent complementary. II. Sent., q. 56 does not tell us what characteristics are essential to that kind of thought which does amount to inner speech. I Sent., q. 36 supplies this information by implication; the very characteristics of speech that led Kilwardby to conclude that inner vision or understanding cannot be understood as inner speech pick out the thoughts that are inner speech. First, such thoughts refer to or point to things understood; they are referential. Second, thought that is inner speech is active (in contrast to inner vision or understanding, which is passive.)

Conclusion: Imposition and Modes of Signifying Despite being replete with quotations from Augustine, with respect to the “inner word,” Kilwardby’s commentary on the Sentences does not present us with an unreserved assimilation of Augustinian philosophical psychology, for Kilwardby is rejecting the thesis that thought can be understood as mental language, though he accepts the weaker claim that when there is genuine inner speech, it amounts to thought. Kilwardby is clearly interested in using Augustinian philosophy of mind to complement Aristotelian-style psychology, rather than to challenge or replace it.

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The role of the Monologion in this discussion of inner speech is extremely significant. In his commentary on Book III of the Sentences,21 Kilwardby describes Anselm’s thought in Cur Deus Homo? as “probably right and subtle” (III Sent., q . 4, 41-2). But the Monologion is frequently criticized in connection with the alleged identification of understanding with inner speaking. Indeed, it seems to be introduced, so as to have a clear target for arguments against a thesis that Kilwardby considers wrong. Kilwardby also means to make the point that if the Monologion is taken literally, its elegant madness is a misrepresentation of the thought of Augustine. What is specifically wrong with the Monologion, it seems, is its use of words like “understanding”, “speaking” and “seeing” in violation of the normal sense for which they were established. This reading is confirmed by looking at Question 72 of I. Sent.: “Whether the Father and Son love each other by the Holy Spirit?” Here we get further information about the difference of “meaning of the words and in how we understand them” between verbs of speaking and verbs of knowing. This time the issue of speaking and understanding comes up in the course of an argument that divine loving and divine being are not the same: We can agree that being (esse) and exercising wisdom (sapere) are the same for God, not just because of identity in the thing signified, but also because of the modes of signifying, for “esse” and “sapere” both signify absolutely and in the mode of being-at-rest (in quiete) (correspondingly, opposing modes of signifying will mean that what say is not the same.) In contrast, “diligere” signifies transitively and in the mode of being-inaction (in fieri), and these are opposing modes22 of signifying. And so it should not be agreed that for God to be and to love are the same. Moreover, the verb of speaking or saying, having to do with cognition, is closer to being an absolute verb like “esse” than the verb of loving, which has to do with feeling. And so if divine speaking or saying is not the same as divine being, divine loving is even less so ( I Sent. q. 72, 299-307).

This argument, Kilwardby says, looks like a good one, but it runs into difficulty if, as Anselm says in Monologion, understanding is nothing other than inner speaking. In this question, Kilwardby does not explain the resulting “difficulty” further, and contents himself with numerous quotations to show that Anselm does indeed identify divine speaking and divine understanding or knowing in the Monologion. But his idea is probably that if Anselm is right, then our “good”

21) 22)

Kilwardby (1982). modi]modis W+Schneider; modi modo M.


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argument can be turned around: If divine speaking and divine knowing—or the exercise of divine wisdom—are the same, then, since divine knowing and divine being are the same, divine speaking and divine being will be the same by transitivity of identity. But then if divine speaking and being are the same, despite the somewhat different modes of signifying of verbs of speaking and “esse”, then modes of signifying cannot be all that important, and so divine loving and divine being may also be the same, despite somewhat more different modes of signifying of “diligere” and “esse”! But Anselm’s view that divine speaking and divine knowing are identical is not right, Kilwardby rejoins, not at any rate unless Anselm means that in the divinity there is no real multiplicity, or that understanding and inner speaking “combine to produce a single knowledge or contemplation of the mind (concurrunt ad unam cogitationem vel mentis contemplationem efficiendam)” (I. Sent., q. 71, 499-503). (Probably that is what he means, Kilwardby adds.) But nonetheless: If we give any weight to the established meanings of the expressions (intentionibus) it will be obvious that speaking or saying is somehow a cause of understanding, and that understanding comes from speaking. Thus for the reason we gave previously, they are not the same, and also because there is a different mode of designating and mode of understanding (designandi et intelligendi) for speaking or saying and for understanding. This is because the act of understanding terminates in the mind, as it were, and occurs in the quiet of contemplation, while the act of speaking or saying comes forth from the mind, as it were, and is carried on in doing, and in action or motion. For this reason it does not follow that any ablative whatsoever that truly qualifies (determinatur) one of these verbs can also truly qualify the other. And therefore even if someone says or speaks by means of a word, it cannot truly be said that he understands by means of a word. Taking the expressions in this way, speaking or saying is not the same as understanding (I Sent., q. 72, 503-13).

Thus Kilwardby is rejecting the approach of the Monologion because it distorts and erodes the impositiones and modi significandi of words by which their semantic and syntactic capacities are fixed so that a conventional external language can be used to communicate what the speaker intends to the understanding of the hearer. The alternative to observing the impositiones of words is the evaporation of meaning. Oddly enough, then, in the case of Robert Kilwardby’s approach to the question of whether inner speaking is the same as inner seeing or understanding or thought, Aristotelian psychology and a stoicizing approach to linguistic meaning square off against a Stoic-inspired theory about the nature of rational thought—and they prevail. With respect to this important issue, there is more juxtaposition than assimilation in Kilwardby’s thought. Historically speaking the juxtaposition

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may be as significant a phenomenon, for it is reasonably clear that confrontation with Aristotelian theory has produced the promise of a re-reading of Augustine’s theory of inner speech. As we have seen, Kilwardby does not really make good on his own promise of a non-Anselmian account of Augustine’s theory, but it is significant that he thinks there is one. We have a promise, that is, that the two theories may “run together as if from different directions to create a single thought or knowledge.”


www.brill.nl/viv

Mental Language and Tradition Encounters in Medieval Philosophy: Anselm, Albert and Ockham Claude Panaccio University of Quebec at Montreal

Abstract Medieval philosophy is often presented as the outcome of a large scale encounter between the Christian tradition and the Greek philosophical one. This picture, however, inappropriately tends to leave out the active role played by the medieval authors themselves and their institutional contexts. The theme of the mental language provides us with an interesting case study in such matters. The paper first introduces a few technical notions—‘theme’, ‘tradition’, ‘textual chain’ and ‘textual borrowing’—, and then focuses on precise passages about mental language from Anselm of Canterbury, Albert the Great and William of Ockham. All three authors in effect identify some relevant Augustinian idea (that of ‘mental word’, most saliently) with some traditional philosophical one (such as that of ‘concept’ or that of ‘logos endiathetos’). But the gist of the operation widely varies along the line and the tradition encounter is staged in each case with specific goals and interests in view. The use of ancient authoritative texts with respect to mental language is thus shown to be radically transformed from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Keywords compositionality, mental language, theme, tradition, verbum

In the very first chapter of his Summa logicae, William of Ockham introduces his celebrated view of the concept as the basic unit of the language of thought. To warrant the notion, he refers in so doing to two of the most outstanding authorities of the medieval intellectual world: Boethius and Augustine, borrowing from the former the idea of a mental sentence (oratio mentalis) and from the latter that of a mental word belonging to no conventional language (verbum mentis).1 This is a typical case where the old Greek philosophical 1)

William of Ockham (1974), 7.


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217768

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C. Panaccio / Vivarium 45 (2007) 269-282

tradition—represented by Boethius—and the Christian religious tradition— personified by Augustine—directly meet with one another within the limits of a single text, even a single paragraph in this particular instance. Medieval philosophy as a whole, indeed, has often been seen as the outcome, on a larger scale, of precisely such encounters. But how exactly does that work? Are we to suppose that traditions copulate somehow and give birth to offsprings? An image of this sort is sometimes assumed in the historiography of philosophy. Yet it must certainly be spurious, if we think of it, in so far as it leaves no active role to play in the end to the medieval thinkers themselves! Whatever they are, traditions after all, are not agents. The medieval theme of mental language handily provides us with the material for an interesting case study in such matters. My approach in the present paper will be to scrutinize three short, but significant, passages from different authors— Anselm, Albert the Great and William of Ockham, namely—where the idea of mental language, or some version of it, is explained with the help of precise, if sometimes indirect, references to both Greek philosophy and the Augustinian corpus. I will build in the process upon the results of my previous synthetic study of mental language from Plato to Ockham,2 but the analysis will be conducted in a fresh perspective, with a special concern for how intellectual traditions typically interact in medieval philosophy. My aim is to show how, with respect to mental language, the use of ancient texts and ideas is completely transformed from Anselm to Ockham, the reason for it being that the theoretical preoccupations radically changed in the meanwhile, mainly because of new scientific and institutional developments. Textual traditions will appear, in this case at least, as much less causally productive by themselves than is often imagined.

Traditions and Themes Before getting on to the selected passages, however, a few words are in order about the general outlook I will be adopting and the main operational concepts I will be using. History of philosophy is frequently conducted as if the basic actors of intellectual developments were impersonal entities such as traditions, currents of thought, doctrines, schools, religions and so on. This might be handy most of the time, but it should never be forgotten that those are mere convenient abstractions. The individual thinkers and their particular spoken and written utterances are, ultimately, the only realities out of which 2)

Panaccio (1999).


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traditions and the like are made up. The history of philosophy is but a scattered plurality of utterance events connected with each other in various ways. The idea of a “theme”, such as the theme of mental language, and that of a “tradition”, such as the Aristotelian or Augustinian traditions, are simply unintelligible unless understood in connection with concrete and spatiotemporally located human activities. Let us start with the notion of a theme, which is an important component of the approach to be pursued here. The relevance of comparing the three texts I have chosen is grounded, prima facie, in the fact that they are supposed to share a given theme, the theme of mental language namely. Yet such a “common theme” is not to be thought of as a transhistorical entity of its own that would be the real extra-textual referent of the various texts under consideration. As I have explained elsewhere, a theme in the history of philosophy should be seen as something very similar to a musical theme.3 It is not located anywhere out of the texts themselves, just as the musical theme is not located anywhere out of the musical sequences. The only realities in the latter case are the concrete musical performances. To say that two such performances exhibit a common theme is but to say that they resemble each order in repeatedly displaying similar strings of notes. In the same vein, two different philosophical texts can be seen as having a theme in common if they crucially display similar strings of words. The similarity of words in such cases, however, should not be thought of as merely phonological, but as primarily semantic. Two texts built up from widely different phonological units—belonging to different languages, for instance—can legitimately be said to exemplify the same theme if a certain string of words that is centrally present in one of them has some close semantic equivalence with a string of words centrally present in the other one. In the particular case of mental language, my habit has been to say that a certain text, from whatever period, exhibits the theme of mental language when it crucially contains certain typical phrases composed of at least two parts, one of which normally refers to the order of mental phenomena while the other normally refers to the order of linguistic phenomena, such as “oratio mentalis” and “verbum mentis” in Latin, “logos endiathetos” in Greek, or ‘mental language’ and “internal discourse” in English. Some extra-linguistic reference is assumed here, of course (how could there be semantic similarity without it?), but it need not be to a special abstract and trans-temporal entity. And, most importantly, it need not even be the global reference of the complex phrases at issue: only the 3)

Panaccio (2001), 262-265.

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usual reference of their simpler components to concrete mental or linguistic phenomena is relevant for the theme in question to be present. As to traditions, they are best construed as groups of concrete textual chains. What I call a textual chain in this context is a chronologically ordered series of texts with a common theme, such that each text in the series (except the first) is linked with the previous one by a direct borrowing in connection with the common theme, a borrowing, here, being any form of integration of some parts or other of the previous text into the new one. A literal quotation would be a salient example, of course, but several other varieties of borrowing are possible, including oblique reports, adoption of typical phrases, distinctions or arguments, and outright plagiarism. A borrowing from a text A by a text B will be said to be “direct” only if the reading (or hearing) of text A actually played a causal role in the use of the borrowed string by the author of text B, and it will be said to be indirect if some intermediate text is required between A and B to account for the borrowing. The idea of textual tradition can then be introduced on the basis of textual chains. This is not the occasion to engage in a detailed discussion of the best way to do it. Various non-equivalent notions should be introduced, obviously, to take into account the various interesting ways in which textual chains can be grouped for historiographical purposes, and a much more complex—and more precise—set of definitions could thus be constructed along these lines. But let us simply agree at this point that what we will call a textual tradition in the present paper (or sometimes a tradition tout court) will be any large cluster of textual chains rooted in a single well delimited corpus such as the writings of Aristotle or Augustine or the Fathers of the Church and so on. However informal and incomplete, these indicative explanations should at least make it apparent that the causal links which constitute a scattered plurality of texts as a chain, and a plurality of textual chains as a tradition, necessarily require the intellectual activity of the later authors: reading and writing in particular. The relevant causality, in the end, is merely a form of mental causation, and it always runs, in reality, from a particular author (or group of authors) to another one by the mediation of externalized written or spoken utterances. The presumption, then, is that the intentions, preoccupations and interests of the borrowers, the institutional and social constraints they are subjected to, the audience they want to reach, and in general the particularities of the context in which they are reading and writing, are crucially determining factors as to what is borrowed exactly, how the borrowing is done, and what import the borrowed strings acquire within the new context. This, emphatically, should always be kept in mind whenever we engage in intellectual history.


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Traditions and themes are all too easily reified into autonomous entities of their own—a way of proceeding which frequently leads to mythological narratives rather than sound historical work. Tradition encounters, in particular, when they occur in definite texts, should be analysed not as the mere results of “influences” or the mere recurrence of previous ideas, but as active elaborations by given authors in given contexts. Let us now turn to specific instances.

Anselm of Canterbury: Monologion, 10 Our first sample is from chapter 10 of Anselm’s Monologion. Having argued in the opening chapters that there is one and only one Creator, Anselm then reflects, starting with chapter 8, upon the notion of a creation ex nihilo. In chapter 10, specifically, he introduces the idea of mental speech (mentis locutio in this case) in view of comparing the creative thought of God with the internal discourse of the craftsman planning to realize something. Here is the text (or at least the parts of it I will be interested in here): But what is this form of things, which in the Maker’s reason preceded the things to be created, other than an expression-of-things [rerum locutio] in the Maker’s reason?—just as when a craftsman who is about to make a work from his craft first speaks of it within himself by a mental conception? Now, by ‘mental expression’ [locutio mentis] or ‘rational expression’ [locutio rationis] I do not mean here thinking the words which are significative of things; I mean, rather, viewing mentally, with the acute gaze of thought, the things themselves which already exist or are going to exist. For in ordinary usage we recognize that we can speak of a single object in three ways. For we speak of objects either (1) by perceptibly employing perceptible signs (i.e., [signs] which can be perceived by the bodily senses) or (2) by imperceptibly thinking to ourselves these same signs, which are perceptible outside us, or (3) neither by perceptibly nor by imperceptibly employing these signs, but by inwardly and mentally speaking of the objects themselves—in accordance with their variety—either through the imagination of material things or through rational discernment [ . . .] Each of these three kinds of speaking has its corresponding kind of words [verba]. Yet, words of that [kind of ] speaking which I mentioned third, and last, are natural and are the same for all races, if they are not words for unknown things [ . . .] [N]o other word seems so similar to the object for which it is a word, and [no other word] so expresses that object, as does that likeness [similitudo] which is expressed in the acute gaze of the mind as it conceives the object itself. Therefore, the natural word is rightly to be called the principal and most proper word for an object.4

4)

Anselm of Canterbury (1946), 24-25.

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The passage obviously exhibits our theme of mental language since the phrase “locutio mentis” or “locutio rationis” occurs in it in a central role: it is indeed this kind of internal speech that God’s creative thought is supposed to be illuminatingly compared with. No author, ancient or recent, is named or quoted in the text, but two sources are easily identifiable: Augustine’s De Trinitate and Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias. From Augustine comes the distinction between three ways in which we can speak of something. Anselm’s enumeration, admittedly, is not found in this exact form in the De Trinitate, but it comes very close to Augustine’s division of the different senses of “verbum” in book IX, chapter 9, paragraph 15;5 and, most importantly, the important opposition in Anselm’s text between (2) silently processing within ourselves the conventional linguistic signs, and (3) inwardly thinking the things themselves without the help of conventional signs, obviously corresponds to the distinction repeatedly stressed by Augustine in book XV between the mental word properly speaking, which belongs to no conventional language, and the mental representation of linguistic units (e.g. De Trinitate XV, 10, 19). It is very doubtful that Anselm, who, we know, read the De Trinitate with utmost care, reinvented these ideas independently and they can be considered, therefore, as direct borrowings, albeit non-literal ones. Anselm’s passage, moreover, also relies—at the end of the first paragraph, when it further distinguishes between two ways of mentally speaking of the objects themselves “either through the imagination of material things or through rational discernment”—upon Augustine introducing first a merely imagined word of the thing itself in book VIII (e.g. 6, 9) before turning in the later parts of the De Trinitate to a more spiritual kind of mental word. And, finally, the reference to the mental viewing of the things themselves “with the acute gaze of thought” (acie cogitantis) toward the beginning of Anselm’s text is, very likely, a reminiscence of Augustine’s identification of the mental word proper with an intellectual sight of some sort (visio cogitationis, De Trinitate XV, 11, 20).6 The second paragraph in Anselm’s quotation, on the other hand, further characterizes the component units of mental speech properly speaking by making use of a cluster of features recognizably inspired by Aristotle’s description of the “passions of the soul” in chapter 1 of the Peri Hermeneias (16a5-8), which 5)

See the passage quoted below n. 8. For a more detailed analysis of how Anselm’s ternary distinction can be obtained from Augustine’s slightly more complex one, see Panaccio (1999), 156. 6) See also De Trinitate XV, 10, 18.


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Anselm was familiar with through Boethius’s translation and commentaries: that these units are “the same for all”, namely, and that they are “likenesses” (similitudines) of their external objects. Anselm, in these lines, equates Augustine’s mental words with Aristotle’s concepts or passions of the soul. Since Augustine’s idea, historically, was to a very large extent independent from Aristotelian souces,7 what we have here, in the last analysis, is a clear case of a tradition encounter, which in fact strikingly foreshadows Ockham’s own conjoining of Augustine and Boethius with respect to mental language in the first chapter of the Summa logicae a couple of centuries later. In Anselm’s case, however, the Aristotelian component is totally subservient with respect to the Augustinian one. Just like Augustine’s, Anselm’s interest is basically theological: he is striving to clarify what is going on in God himself. He does use human psychology as a comparison for this, even recruiting Aristotle in the process, but his goal is not to contribute anything to the study of human thought; it is to tame to some extent the Christian idea of divine creation. And the relevant chapter is organized accordingly, just as the entire Monologion, indeed, follows a theological agenda. The key point of our specific passage is made in the second sentence, when Anselm explains that the human locutio mentis he wants to compare God’s creative thinking with, is not the silent representation of linguistic signs, but the mental viewing of the things themselves, the intent here being to pinpoint, for theological comparison, the most spiritual aspect of human psychological activity, just as Augustine’s insistence on the mental word proper was basically aimed at improving our understanding of the Christian God. Anselm, it must be stressed, is not merely repeating Augustine: while Augustine was interested in the mystery of the divine Trinity, Anselm’s primary focus in this passage is on the idea of the creation ex nihilo, and he uses Augustine, therefore, in the context of his own original undertaking, a situation which is quite typical as far as textual chains are concerned. Yet, the meeting of the Aristotelian and the Augustinian traditions in Anselm’s text is clearly unbalanced in the end: the Aristotelian reference simply occurs as a secondary scientific support for what turns out to be a generally Augustinian approach.

Albert the Great: “In I Sententiarum, 27, 7” In his Commentary on the Sentences, written toward the middle of the thirteenth century, Albert the Great explicitly addresses the question of how to 7)

See Panaccio (1999), especially chapters 2 and 3.

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reconcile the authorities as to the various senses of the term “verbum”. This occurs in distinction 27 of the first book, which is precisely the locus classicus of thirteenth and fourteenth-century discussions on God’s Word and its comparison with human mental speech. Albert, there, mentions four different distinctions, all of which incorporate the theme of mental language: – First, he quotes the very lines from Augustine’s De Trinitate, book IX, which I have identified above as a possible source for Anselm’s division in the Monologion;8 and he extracts from it four varieties of verbum, “namely, two with syllables, whether thought or pronuntiated, and two more corresponding to the impressions of the external thing in the soul, according to whether the thing is pleasant or not.”9 – Second, he quotes a passage from John Damascene’s De fide orthodoxa, book I, chapter 13, where four senses of “logos”—“verbum” in the Latin translation available to Albert—are enumerated: (1) the divine Verbum “who is ever essentially present with the Father”; (2) “the natural movement of the mind, according to which it is moved and thinks and considers, being as it were its own light and radiance”; (3) the “thought that is spoken only within the heart”; and (4) “the utterance that is the messenger of thought”.10 – Third, he mentions a commentary on John’s Gospel (Super Ioannem) where a threefold distinction is laid out between (1) the mental word of the heart, (2) the internal image of the uttered word, and (3) the spoken word. – And finally, he attributes to some “masters” (magistri) a similar distinction between (1) the word of the thing itself, (2) the uttered word, and (3) the mental representation of the uttered word (species vocis). The academic context, here, is very different from Anselm’s. The available textual references had multiplied in the meanwhile and serious scholarship now imposed new requirements. While Anselm could confidently assume that the authorities he relied upon—and which he didn’t even bother to mention by name—must have been in basic agreement with each other, just as reason and faith were, this assumption has come to be a problem in Albert’s time. Albert,

8) 9) 10)

Augustine, De Trinitate IX, 9, 15. Albert the Great (1893), 46. John Damascene (1955), 62-63. The English translation is from Salmond (1898), 16-17.


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it is true, insists that the four series of distinctions he is reviewing about the verbum all amount to pretty much the same in the end (except that Augustine draws a further distinction with respect to the others, between pleasant and unpleasant cognitions).11 But this supposed doctrinal equivalence is not something he can afford to take for granted anymore; it now has to be argued for with precise textual quotations and commentary. Yet what is going on in Albert’s passage can be seen, just as in Anselm’s case, as an encounter between the Augustinian tradition and the Greek philosophical tradition. Augustine’s approach to the mental word is directly referred to—and textually quoted—in Albert’s first division. It is, most probably, the indirect source for the third and fourth divisions as well, which both display, with a few terminological nuances, the same three-fold distinction we have come across in Anselm between the mental word proper, the internal silent representation of the spoken word, and the outwardly spoken word, a list which yields an unmistakable Augustinian flavour. The second division, on the other hand, is something completely different, with different origins. Albert explicitly borrows it from Damascene, whose treatise, originally written in Greek in the eighth century, was entirely independent from Augustine. The exact sources of Damascene in the passage quoted by Albert are not known,12 but the development is obviously rooted in a properly philosophical tradition. Damascene’s work is a theological one, admittedly, but it often indirectly displays philosophical sources. That this is the case in our present passage is apparent from the following two considerations: first, the passage explicitly makes use of the technical vocabulary of logos endiathetos (internal discourse) and logos prophorikos (uttered discourse) which had become standard in late Greek philosophy;13 and second, once we put aside the first—overtly theological—member of Damascene’s quadripartite distinction (the divine Verbum “who is ever essentially present with the Father”), the remaining three closely correspond to a ternary distinction attributed to the “Ancients” by the Islamic thinker Alfarabi in the tenth century, who probably got it from philosophical sources.14 11)

Albert the Great (1893), 46-47. Cf. Panaccio (1999), 80-83. 13) For a detailed analysis of the distinction between logos endiathetos and logos prophorikos in late Greek philosophy, see Panaccio (1999), 53-93. Contrary to a wide-spread belief, I argue there (after a number of others, especially Chiesa 1991, 1992), that we have no good reason for thinking that this distinction is of specifically Stoic origin. By the second century A. D., at any rate, it had become common to all Greek philosophical schools. 14) See Alfarabi (1932), 136 (= De scientiis, ch. 2). 12)

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As in Anselm, moreover, the two traditions are unequally present in Albert’s passage. Not only is the Augustinian one granted three references against one for the philosophical tradition, but the general context of discussion, most importantly, remains typically Augustinian, the question under consideration (“In reference to what earthly word is the divine Word so called?”)15 being clearly inspired by the De Trinitate. The unbalance, in this case, is further interestingly reflected by the fact that Albert simply misinterprets Damascene’s distinction in the end by equating it with the other three. Damascene’s item no 3 is—in so many words—the logos endiathetos of the Greek philosophers, which cannot very well be interpreted as a mental representation of linguistic sounds as Albert claims; and Damascene’s item no 2—the “natural movement of the mind”, its “light and radiance”—, therefore, must be something quite different from the internal discourse Albert wants to identify it with,16 something, in fact, that is utterly absent from Augustine’s division as well as from the Super Ioannem’s and the magistri’s lists. Albert, in other words, misreads Damascene because he reads him with Augustinian lens. To an even higher degree than in Anselm, the encounter between the Greek philosophical tradition and the Augustinian tradition leads in his text to an outright takeover of the former into the latter.17

William of Ockham: Summa logicae I, 1 Let us come back now to the text we started with from the first chapter of Ockham’s Summa logicae: It should be noted that just as Boethius says in his Commentary on the first book of the Perihermeneias that there are three types of discourse [oratio]: written, spoken and conceptual, the latter existing only within the intellect, there are, in the same way, three types of terms: written, spoken and conceptual [ . . .] And consequently, those conceptual terms and the propositions which are composed of them are those mental words of which saint Augustine says in book XV of the De Trinitate that they belong to no [external] language, since they remain in the mind and cannot be uttered outside, although the spoken sounds which are subordinated to them as signs are uttered exteriorly.18

15)

Albert the Great (1893), 46 (= In I Sent. 27, quest. 7). Albert the Great (1893), 47. 17) The same Augustinian reinterpretation of Damascene’s quadripartite division is also found in Aquinas, who simply follows Albert on this. See Aquinas, In I Sent. 27, quest. 2, art. 1, and Summa theologiae I, 34, art. 1. 18) William of Ockham (1974), 7. 16)


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Ockham, here, assimilates Augustine’s mental words with Boethius’s oratio mentalis, thus bringing together, with respect to the theme of mental language, the same two traditions—Augustinian and Aristotelian—that we have dealt with in Anselm’s case. The operation, however, now takes on a completely different significance. From Boethius’s second Commentary on the Perihermeneias, Ockham borrows the idea that there are three sorts of “oratio”. While not found in Aristotle himself, the distinction was explicitly attributed to the later Peripateticians by Boethius, and there is little doubt that it does belong to the Aristotelian tradition.19 Ockham uses it in what looks at first like a mere comparison: “sicut secundum Boethium [ . . .] triplex est oratio [ . . .], sic triplex est terminus”. The reference, however, is much more intelligibly seen as an argument than as a comparison. “Oratio” is the technical term of the Latin Aristotelian vocabulary for a complex expression, a complete sentence in particular. Ockham’s point, consequently, is the following: since there are three sorts of complex discursive units, as Boethius says, there must be, accordingly, the same three sorts of simple significant units. What comes out as salient for Ockham in this context is the phenomenon of logical composition. The conceptus terminus he arrives at on the basis of his Boethian premise is first introduced by him as the basic component unit of propositional combinations: “The conceptual term is an intention or passion of the soul which naturally signifies or cosignifies something, and which is destined to be a part of a mental proposition”.20 When he turns to Augustine in the next sentence, Ockham continues to express this same predominant interest for compositionality by explicitly identifying Augustine’s mental words with “those conceptual terms and the propositions which are composed of them”. This is highly revealing. Augustine himself never insisted very much on the compositional aspect of the mental word. What he wanted to draw attention to was that the human mind engenders something spiritual within itself, and as a faithful expression of itself. This is what matters, in his eyes, for the comparison he wants to push with God’s generation of the Son. Ockham’s passage, by contrast, occurs at the beginning of a treatise in logic, the general outlook and plan of which is provided, precisely, by the compositional structure of both language and

19)

See Boethius (1880), 29. A few pages further on (36), Boethius attributes the distinction to Porphyry; cf. Panaccio (1999), 122-127. 20) Ockham (1974), 7.

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thought.21 Its starting point is a specifically Aristotelian cluster of theses: logic has to do with truth; internal thought is the primary locus of truth; and truth is basically a matter of composition and division. It is Augustine’s role, now, that has come to be ancillary in connection with the theme of the mental language: the main function of the reference to the De Trinitate in Ockham’s passage is to legitimize, in the context of a generally Christian academic world, the (non-Augustinian) idea that human thought has a semantical compositional structure quite similar to what we observe in spoken and written languages. One might be tempted to trivialize the shift by remarking that Anselm’s Monologion was a theological treatise while Ockham’s Summa logicae is a philosophical work, and that it is normal, consequently, that the textual chain rooted in Augustine’s De Trinitate should be predominant in the former while the textual chain rooted in Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias (via Boethius) is predominant in the latter. But that would miss the point. What our examination of the three chosen texts points to in the end is that the general significance of the theme of mental language was deeply transformed from the late eleventh century to the early fourteenth. It is not just a matter of one aspect of it being more insisted upon in one field, and another aspect in another field. In so far as the theme was present at all from Anselm to Albert, it was predominantly dealt with in an Augustinian guise and in connection with prevailingly Augustinian concerns. What happened between Albert and Ockham is that logic as an autonomous field of study acquired a new salient institutional status in the academic world and pressing questions about it came to the forefront. What is logic all about? What are syllogisms composed of ? And how are the basic units of thought to be described.22 The theme of mental language was radically reoriented in this new context, mainly by Ockham, with the compositionality of thought now at the centre of it, rather than the internal engendering of a spiritual offspring. This shift from a theological to a philosophical exploitation of the theme was associated, unsurprisingly, with a new balance in the use of the relevant textual traditions, especially since the idea of the compositionality of thought had itself clear Aristotelian rather than Augustinian roots.23 The 21) The very first sentence of chapter 1 of the Summa logicae reveals the primary interest of the work for compositionality, while, at the same time, announcing its general plan. See William of Ockham (1974), 7: ‘Omnes logicae tractatores intendunt astruere quod argumenta ex propositionibus et propositiones ex terminis componentur.’ Part I, accordingly, deals with terms; Part II with propositions; and Part III with arguments. 22) See on this development Panaccio (1992), (1999), ch. 8, and (2003). 23) See in particular Perihermeneias 1, 16a10-13, and De Anima III, 6, 430a25-430b6.


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main thing, however, is that Ockham’s network of theoretical problems was radically new with respect to both Anselm and Albert. His ultimate aim in the Summa logicae is to use the technical apparatus of grammar and terminist logic for the fine-grained analysis of the compositionality of human thought. This, of course, is much more in line with the Aristotelian tradition than with the Augustinian one. Yet it is, on the whole, a genuinely original research programme, even with respect to Aristotle and Boethius. And this research programme determines in the end the specific role played by each of the two textual traditions in our chosen passage from the Summa logicae.

Conclusion The three main channels through which the theme of mental language was transmitted from the ancient to the medieval world were Augustine, Boethius and John Damascene. How the corresponding three textual chains came across each other in the Middle Ages with respect to mental language is revealingly illustrated in the three passages we have looked at here. Anselm tacitly—and casually—equates Augustine’s properly mental words with Aristotle’s concepts, as known to him through Boethius. Albert the Great, with an impressive display of scholarship, explicitly—but mistakenly—equates Damascene’s logos endiathetos with Augustine’s silent representation of spoken words. And Ockham, finally, equates Augustine’s mental word with Boethius’s oratio mentalis. All three, then, concur in bringing together on this theme the Greek philosophical tradition—the Aristotelian one especially—and the theological Augustinian tradition. The outcomes, however, are heterogeneous. While Anselm and Albert, despite their institutional distance, both generally remain in the Augustinian line and exploit the philosophical reference as a mere legitimizing device for theological purposes, quite the reverse occurs in Ockham: Augustine serves there as a legitimizer for the promotion of a philosophical programme inspired by the Aristotelian tradition. The whole thing, however, should not be seen as a large-scale continuing struggle between two impersonal historical forces. The encounter in each case is conducted with specific goals and interests, and within a distinctive context. Anselm is primarily interested in understanding God’s creation ex nihilo. Albert, while even closer to Augustine with respect to the problem he discusses, stands out by the scholarly strategy he relies upon. And Ockham’s focus on the compositionality of thought, while “inspired”, as I said, by Aristotelian ideas, turns out in the end to be highly original in so far as it is intended at the

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exploitation of the specifically medieval terminist logic for the elaboration of a new brand of philosophy of mind. Tradition encounters, in short, don’t just happen, they are staged by individual authors—or groups of authors—who use in their own ways and for their own purposes the intellectual and linguistic tools they find available in authoritative texts. Sometimes, of course, a given author might subscribe on the whole to some ancient research programme, as Albert does with respect to Augustine’s problem of finding the most adequate analogy between God’s internal engendering and human mental activity; but sometimes also, a new approach emerges, and it is usually more illuminating for historians of thought in such cases to appreciate the immediate relevant institutional context and to understand the philosophical problems at hand than to locate the author’s remote textual sources.


www.brill.nl/viv

Intentionality and Truth-Making: Augustine’s Influence on Burley and Wyclif ’s Propositional Semantics1 Laurent Cesalli Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i.Br.

Abstract Walter Burley (1275-c.1344) and John Wyclif (1328-1384) follow two clearly stated doctrinal options: on the one hand, they are realists and, on the other, they defend a correspondence theory of truth that involves specific correlates for true propositions, in short: truth-makers. Both characteristics are interdependent: such a conception of truth requires a certain kind of ontology. This study shows that a) in their explanation of what it means for a proposition to be true, Burley and Wyclif both develop what we could call a theory of intentionality in order to explain the relation that must obtain between the human mind and the truth-makers, and b) that their explanations reach back to Augustine, more precisely to his theory of ocular vision as exposed in the De trinitate IX as well as to his conception of ideas found in the Quaestio de ideis. Keywords semantics, ontology, realism, intentionality, truth-making, medieval philosophy

Consider the two following questions: if propositional truth depends on a kind of correspondence relation between the mental (i.e. a mental proposition) and the non-mental (i.e. what that mental proposition is about), then how do we bridge the gap between the mental and the non-mental? And what kind of corresponding entity is responsible for the truth of so called nonstandard propositions (i.e. propositions whose tense is not the present or whose subject-matter belongs to the past or the future)? 1)

I am very grateful to Prof. Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen and Prof. John Marenbon for their reading of and critical comments on a first draft of this paper, as well as to Meredith Ziebart for her help with the final English version of this study.


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217777

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L. Cesalli / Vivarium 45 (2007) 283-297

The present study intends to reconstruct the solutions that were given to these problems by two prominent realist philosophers of the fourteenth century, Walter Burley (1275-c.1344) and John Wyclif (1328-1384). These solutions both display the remarkable common feature of all having been elaborated under Augustinian influence. Two facts constitute the background of this claim. First, when attempting to describe how what he calls a “real proposition” (propositio in re) is formed, Walter Burley calls upon Augustine and his theory of ocular vision as it is expounded in De trinitate XI, a theory in which the notion of intentio plays a central role.2 Second, when Burley and Wyclif explain how one can generalize a rather strict correspondence-theory of truth, they both draw upon Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis.3 Accordingly, my aim is to show that reference to Augustine helped both Burley and Wyclif with two issues crucial for propositional semantics, namely intentionality and truth-making. Following Aristotle but also Avicenna, most medieval philosophers, whether realist or nominalist, defend a correspondence theory of truth,4 whereby to be true for a sentence is to correspond to something else. But not all medieval philosophers understand correspondence in the same way. The question then is: are there any proposition-specific correlates—we would say “states of affairs”—that make propositions true? This is where nominalists and realists disagree. The former deny the existence of such specific correlates, while the latter, often speaking of an “ultimate propositional significate”, accept them.5 Thus realist thinkers like Burley and Wyclif have to face the ontological challenge of providing specific correlates, at least for every true proposition,6 while

2)

For an excellent study of the relation between optics and vision theories on the one hand, and theory of knowledge and semantics on the other, see Tachau (1988). 3) For the medieval interpretation and reception of Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis, cf. Hoenen (1997) and the 2004 issue of the “Revue thomiste”, entirely devoted to that theme. 4) Cf. for example Aristote, Metaphysics, IX.10, 1051b1-8 and Categories, 5, 4a34-37, 4b8-10 and 12, 14b18-23. For the classical definition of truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei and its origin see for example Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q.1, a.1 (1970), 5.162-6.200, as well as Muckle (1933) for the origin of this definition by Isaac Israeli. For the avicennian definition, see Avicenna, Philosophia prima, I.8 (1977), 83.55. 5) Cf. for example John Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in primum et secundum librum Perihermeneias Aristotelis (1639), q.2, n.4; Burley Quaestiones super librum Perihermeneias (1974), §3.553, Liber Praedicamentorum (1497), f.15vb-16ra; Wyclif, Logice continuacio, I.1 (1893), 77. 6) Falsity can be defined precisely as the absence of such correlate or with the correspondence to an abstract (non real) « false » correlate, cf. Gregory of Rimini (1978-1987), III, 228.25-229.2.


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nominalists can get around the difficulty by claiming that such correlates are not needed at all.7 The questions of intentionality and truth-making raised above are of central importance for philosophical and theological issues: the philosophical issue is that of the status and the possibility of scientific knowledge in a contingent world; the theological one regards the relation between God and scientific truth. Indeed, our problematic does not pertain to propositional semantics alone, but to every domain of knowledge that is concerned with the status of objects of propositional attitudes. If specific propositional correlates do exist, they are not just ultimate significates or truth-makers of propositions, but also objects of knowledge and belief—what p stands for in ‘I know/believe that p’ is always a proposition. From the first decades of the thirteenth century onwards, medieval intellectuals had to face a conflicting situation: on the one hand, the Aristotelian scientific paradigm as found in the Posterior Analytics requires all scientific knowledge to be universal and necessary,8 on the other hand, the created world—that is: individuals, but also species and genera—is by definition contingent. Does this mean that God alone can be object and subject of genuine scientific knowledge? To avoid this awkward consequence, one had to find a solution that would be compatible with both the Aristotelian scientific exigency and the contingency of the created world. Augustine’s theory of ideas as expounded in his Quaestio de ideis offered such a solution. In this short text, Augustine turned Plato’s abstract Ideas into ideas in the mind of God, thus providing, within the Christian framework, an essential link between every contingent being and its eternal and necessary counterpart.9 The Platonic principle of participation made it possible for us to have intellectual knowledge of the necessary and universal components of contingent things.10 This helped to provide a framework for “Aristotelian”

7)

Cf. for example Adam Wodeham (1990), 195.19-30, who says that the question ‘quid est significatum propositionis? ’ an ill-formed question is (quaestio inepta), since what a proposition does signify is not a quid, but an esse quid. Cf. also Gál (1967), 89 and Ockham (1974), 249-250. 8) Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, I.4 (1968), 194.25-31). This text was translated around 1150 by James of Venice. The first known latin commentary on the Posterior Analytics is due to Robert Grosseteste and is dated around 1220-1230, cf. Robert Grosseteste (1981), 18-9. 9) Augustine, Quaestio de ideis (1975b), 70.1-71.32. For the medieval reception and tradition of Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis, cf. Hoenen (1993), 121-156 and (1997), for literature, see pp. 245-246, n. 3-4, as well as Hoffmann (2002). 10) Augustine, Quaestio de ideis (1975b), 71.33-73.64.

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science in a contingent—that is created—world, a framework that was recognized and used by Burley and Wyclif in their propositional semantics. However, there arose a further, theological problem: if, as realist philosophers maintained, (i) true scientific propositions are made true by corresponding entities and (ii) all genuine scientific knowledge has to be universal and necessary, then the truth-makers of scientific propositions are universal and necessary entities subsisting alongside God, since not every scientific truth pertains to God. This was theologically problematic insofar as the view that there are eternal truths distinct from God had been repeatedly discussed and condemned by the church.11 Thus, as we will see, realist philosophers like Burley and Wyclif are careful to develop their ontology without threatening God’s uniqueness and simplicity.

Intentionality Wyclif and the Truth That Pertains to the Logician Discussing Book IV, chapter 6 of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Wyclif gives a fourfold division of truth: truth, he says in his De ente (written between 13651375), is sometimes understood in a semantic way, that is as the correspondence by virtue of which a linguistic sign is true or false; sometimes, truth is understood in a semiotic way, that is when the sign itself is called a truth;12 sometimes, it is understood is an ontological way, when extramental reality is called a truth; finally, truth is understood in an intermediate or mixed way, that is as an aggregate made out of ontological truth and a mental act: “aggregatum ex veritate reali et actu anime.”13 Now Wyclif adds,

11)

The condemned thesis reads “Quod multae veritates fuerunt ab aeterno, quae non sunt ipse Deus”. The series of condemnations starts in 1241 with William of Auvergne, we find it mentioned in Bonaventure’s Sentence Commentary (II, d.23, a.2, q.3) and it figures in the Parisian and Oxonian lists of errors condemned in 1277 respectively by Etienne Tempier and Robert Kilwardby. For a reconstruction of this intricate story, cf. De Libera (2002), 177-187. 12) The distinction between the semantic and the semiotic truth may be understood analogically to the distinction made by Anselm of Canterbury in De veritate, 2 between two kinds of propositional truth: “alia igitur est rectitudo et veritas enuntiationis, quia significat ad quod significandum facta est; alia vero, quia significat quod accepit significare” (Anselm (1946), 179.10-12). For a more detailed account of Wyclif ’s theory of propositional truth, see Cesalli (2005). 13) Wyclif (1909), 105.


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[. . .] in order to explain the fourth kind of truth, one has to pay attention to the common opinion of the doctors, which is that some things are entirely outside the soul, such as wood, a stone, and the like; others are entirely within the soul, such as dreams and acts of the soul; however some things, they say, are partially inside and partially outside the soul, such as a universal, time, as well as other aggregates resulting of the operation of the intellect and extra-mental things. This is why philosophers say that the intellect produces universality in things.14

We shall see below that Walter Burley is most probably one of the Doctores Wyclif has in mind when he refers to a vulgata sentencia doctorum. According to Wyclif, the four kinds of truth can be distributed to different disciplines. Thus, the grammarian is interested in semiotic truth and the metaphysician in ontological truth. As for the first and the fourth kind of truth, they pertain to the logician15 who considers the truth in a mixed way (mixtim), that is as an ontological truth as it is considered by the mind: “Thus the logician conceives in a mixed way that the proposition ‘the world exists’ is true on the side of things in so far as the mind thinks about it”.16 Summing up, truth as it pertains to the logician results from a mixed causality of extramental or ontological truth on the one hand, and a cognitive mental act, on the other. In modern terms, one could say that a true proposition is, according to the logician, an extra-mental truth present in the mind as a complex intentional object. Burley and the “ens copulatum” Burley introduces the notion of propositio in re in his so called middle commentary on the Perihermeneias (c.1310) to answer the following relativist objection: if the truth of a proposition is primarily in the mind, does this mean that there will be as many truths as there are minds composing them? Not at all, replies Burley. What is multiplied according to the number of 14) Ibid.: “Unde pro explanacione quarti membri, notanda vulgata sentiencia doctorum, que est: aliquod est totaliter extra animam, ut lignum, lapis, et cetera; aliquod totaliter in anima, ut sompnia et actus anime; aliquod autem, ut dicunt, partim in anima et partim extra animam, ut universale, tempus et cetera aggregata ex operacione intellectus et rebus extra. Unde dicunt philosophi quod intellectus facit universalitatem in rebus”. For the authority according to which the intellect causes universality in things, cf. Auctoritates Aritsotelis, 6.27 (Hamesse (1974), 176), the source of which is Averroes, In De anima I, com. 8 (Averroes (1953), 12.25-26). 15) Wyclif (1909), 108: “Illud <sc. ‘verum et falsum non sunt in rebus, sed in mente’> verum est de vero et falso primo et quarto modo dictis, quorum consideracio pertinet ad logicos, qui non consistunt citra composicionem et divisionem in anima”. 16) Wyclif (1909), 109: “logicus autem concipit sic mixtim, quod ‘mundum esse’ est verum ex parte rei, ut mens cogitat”.

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individual intellects are mental subjective propositions, but their truth is itself dependent on their correspondence with an objective mental proposition that one can call, so says Burley, a propositio in re. Such an objective mental proposition is the ultimate propositional significate. Many years later, in his last commentary on the Categories (1337), Burley expounds his theory once again, and this time he is more careful to explain exactly what that ultimate propositional significate is. Let us now consider two features of this propositio in re. First, it is described as being partly (partim) in the mind and partly outside the mind; more precisely, its formal part (the copula) is a mental act, while its material parts (subject and predicate) are extramental things.17 A similar thesis is already present in Burley’s early Quaestiones super Porphyrium, which can be read as a synthesizing lecture on the last two cases of the Avicenno-Albertinian distinction between universals ante rem, in re, and post rem.18 Second, when it comes to the question of how such a hybrid item can possess any kind of unity, Burley calls upon the De trinitate, explaining the formation of the propositio in re according to the model of vision analysed in book XI of Augustine’s theological treatise:19 just as the sense of vision possesses a force called intentio, which is capable of maintaining the sense of vision coupled with a visible object, thus producing the actual vision of an extramental object, so the intellect possesses an intentio capable of producing the actual signification of an object: But one might ask here how it is that a single composite can be made from a thing existing in the intellect and a thing existing outside of the soul. To this it must be answered that

17) Burley (1497a), 16rb: “Unde cum propositio sit triplex, quaedam in prolatione, quaedam in conceptu et quaedam significata per propositionem in conceptu que potest dici propositio in re, propositio primo modo dicta, scilicet propositio in prolatione, est totaliter extra animam et talis propositio totaliter componitur ex vocibus que habent esse extra animam. Propositio vero composita ex conceptibus est totaliter in intellectu. Et compositio composita ex rebus partim est in intellectu et partim extra intellectum. Quantum ad suum formale est in intellectu sed quantum ad materialia est totaliter extra intellectum”. 18) Burley, Quaestiones super Porphyrium, q. 7, quoted in Burley (1998), 78, n.18; Albert the Great, De praedicabilibus, II.3, (1889), 24a-b; Avicenna (1508), f.12ra. Avicenna himself takes this doctrine from the neoplatonic Commentators of Aristotle such as Ammonius and Simplicius. It ultimately goes back to Plato and Aristotle: the universal ante rem corresponds to the Platonic Idea, the universal in re to the Platonic participated form and the Aristotelian immanent form, the universal post rem to the abstract concept according to Aristotle, see De Libera (1996), 183-185, 501. 19) Augustine, De trinitate, XI, ii, 2. For the role of the notion of intentio in Augustine’s theory of ocular vision and mental language, see Sirridge (1999).


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such a composite can be made by intellectual but not by real composition, and that such a composite can be called a copulated being; and a copulated being can be produced not only by the intellect, but also by the senses or by the intention of the senses. For Augustine says that intention couples the sense, or the operation of the sense, with the sensible object.20

In its most articulate and final formulation, then, Burley’s theory of the propositio in re is explained along the lines of Augustine’s analyses of ocular vision. Both Burley and Wyclif describe a kind of logical object grounded in extramental reality as well as in mental activity. The former explains its formation in reference to the theory of vision as found in the De trinitate, the latter claims he is just reproducing a vulgata sententia doctorum, one of these doctors most probably being Burley himself.21 A propositio in re, says Burley, is partly in the soul and partly outside of the soul, while according to Wyclif, the truth as it pertains to the logician is conceived in a “mixed way”, that is: when a cognitive act is directed towards an extramental truth. In both cases, what is described is the ability of the mind to produce complex intentional objects.

Truth-Making Burley and the Permanence of Truth Burley defends a correspondence-theory of truth: a proposition is true if something corresponds to it and makes it true. More precisely, what makes a proposition true is the identity of the things signified respectively by the subject and predicate terms. Such a theory works well in simple, factual cases. But how about when the things which make a proposition true no longer exist? Burley considers and provides a solution to this kind of problem: the proposition ‘Caesar est Caesar’, for example, is true now because there is now a relation of identity between Caesar and himself, not as a “being as it exists”, but as a 20)

Burley (1497a), 16rb-va: “Sed dubium est hic qualiter potest fieri unum compositum ex re existente in intellectu et re existente extra animam. Dicendum quod ex talibus potest fieri unum compositum compositione intellectuali non autem compositione reali et tale compositum potest dici ens copulatum et potest fieri ens copulatum et non solum per intellectum sed etiam per sensum vel per intentionem sensus. Dicit enim beatus Augustinus quod intentio copulat sensum vel operationem sensus cum sensibili obiecto”. 21) Besides the patent similarities in Burley’s and Wyclif ’s respective theories of the ens copulatum and of the veritas quae pertinet ad logicum, the claim that Wyclif knew Burley’s theory of the proposition is supported by its explicit mention in the De universalibus, 1 (Wyclif (1985a), 21.85-92).

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“super-transcendent being” or a “being that is common to all intelligibles”.22 Does this mean that anything one can think of can be the truth-maker of a proposition? Burley’s insistence on the objective character of truth is certainly incompatible with such an interpretation. So what is that “being common to all intelligibles”? Let us try to clarify this point by considering some of Burley’s other texts. The problem here is what one can call the problem of the permanence of truth, that is, of the permanence of the two extremes of the correspondence relation which defines truth: a proposition and its truth-maker. To be able to deal with non-simple factual cases, Burley introduces into his theory an independence of being and actual existence on three different levels. We have just encountered the first with the example of the proposition ‘Caesar est Caesar’—the independence of the being of a truth-maker in regard to its actual existence via the notion of “being common to all intelligibles”. The second is the independence of ontological truth in regard to the intellect. The third is the independence of the truth of any proposition in regard to its actual formation. All of these elements occur in the following text, taken from the so called middle commentary on the Perihermeneias, probably written around 1310: Thus I say that the thing signified by the proposition ‘man is an animal’ does not depend on the intellect, just as the truth of that thing does not depend on it; (. . .) The mental propositions that the intellect makes by perceiving such extra-mental truths correspond to things that are so related in reality. Thus I say that the truth which is subjectively in the intellect is nothing but a certain correspondence between the intellect and a proposition that is only objectively in the intellect. (. . .) Therefore, it is possible for the proposition ‘man is an animal’, insofar as it is subjectively in the intellect, not to exist, but insofar as it is objectively in the intellect, it is impossible for it not to be, or not to be true.23 22)

Burley (1497b), 58rb: “Dicendum quod Caesare corrupto identitas est Caesaris ad Caesarem, sed illa identitas non existit, sed est identitas rationis. Et idem Caesarem idem Caesari identitate quae non est nec oportet quod idem et diversum semper sint differentie entis maxime transcendentis quod scilicet est in intellectu. Unde sic potest dici, quod ens dicitur dupliciter: uno modo ut est commune omni intelligibili, alio modo idem est quod existens. Sic idem et diversum dicitur uno modo ut sunt differentie entis transcendentis, alio modo ut sunt differentie entis in effectu, hoc est in actu existentis”. 23) Burley (1973), §1.27: “Unde dico quod res significata per istam ‘homo est animal’ non dependet ab intellectu nec etiam veritas istius rei; (. . .) Istis tamen sic se habentibus in re correspondent propositiones in intellectu quas intellectus efficit ex hoc quod percipit tales veritates extra. Unde dico quod veritas quae est subiective in intellectu non est nisi quaedam adaequatio intellectus ad propositionem veram quae solum habet esse obiectivum in intellectu. (. . .) Unde ista ‘homo est animal’ quae est propositio habens esse subiective in intellectu potest non esse, tamen ista ut solum habet esse obiectivum in intellectu non potest non esse nec non esse vera”.


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We find the very same idea in Burley’s Super tractatum fallaciarum (probably written at Oxford, in the first decade of the fourteenth century).24 There, Burley considers an objection that is similar to the one mentioned above and in reply to which he had introduced the notion of propositio in re. In the Super tractatum fallaciarum, the problem is the following: Burley has just stated that insofar as a syllogism exists in the mind (in mente), it cannot cease to be, as opposed to what happens to written or spoken syllogisms. Now comes the objector: if the proper being of a syllogism is in the mind, then, when a syllogism is no longer in the same mind—for example not in my mind anymore, but in someone else’s—it must cease to be; and thus, Burley’s thesis of the permanent existence of a syllogism in the mind is mistaken. Burley’s answer is surprising: Against this it is argued that if the proper being of a syllogism were in the mind, then it would cease to be if at some later point it were no longer in the same mind (. . .). To that, it must be replied that the being of a proposition or syllogism does not depend essentially upon my mind or yours, but upon the intellect of an intelligence from which it never recedes. Thus if a syllogism were now in a particular mind and then later not, it would cease to have the subjective being that it had, but would not cease to be essentially.25

There are two points of particular interest in this passage: the first is the explanation of the permanence of a proposition through a non-human intellect, that is, through the intellect of “some intelligence” (intellectus alicuius intelligentiae);26 the second is the link implicitly made here between the objective being of a proposition and the intellect of that intelligence. In other words, when Burley says of a proposition as being objectively in the soul that it is impossible for it not to be, nor to be untrue (cf. Burley (1973), §1.27 cited 24)

Burley (2003), 151-207 (197-207). Burley (2003), 200: “Contra illud arguitur: si proprium esse syllogismi esset in mente, si postea non sit in eadem mente, desinit inesse (. . .). Ad illud dicendum quod esse propositionis vel syllogismi non dependet essentialiter a mente mea vel tua, sed essentialiter dependet ab intellectu alicuius intelligentiae a quo numquam recedit. Unde si aliquis syllogismus nunc sit in mente alicuius et postea non, desinit habere esse subiectivum quod habuit, non tamen desinit esse essentialiter”. 26) As S. Ebbesen remarks (Burley (2003), 156): “It is no common place in works of logic to appeal to the intellect of an intelligence, i.e. of a separate substance, in order to provide propositions with a permanent essence”. For the incorporation of the (originally Aristotelian) intelligences, that is intellectual and non-material substances, into medieval latin Philosophy, see for example Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, c. IV. Besides Avicenna’s Metaphysica or Philosophia prima, the neoplatonic Liber de Causis plays a prominent role in that process of integration. 25)

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above p. 290), he might mean its being objectively contained in the intellect of a non-human intelligence.27 In this respect, it is worth comparing what Burley says in the above cited texts with what can be found in his later metaphysical treatise De universalibus (written after 1337). The whole fifth chapter of that treatise can be seen as a commentary on Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis. There, Burley asks the following question: “whether exist in God, as those say who assert that the divine mind contains ideas representing the images of created things, or whether they exist per se outside of the divine mind”. His answer is that universals, or ideas, do exist in the divine intellect, but one has to be careful not to identify simpliciter ideas with the divine essence.28 An idea, according to Burley, is a kind of connotative entity. In its “principal” dimension, an idea in the divine mind is really identical with the divine essence; in its connotative dimension however, it is different from it. For example, in their “principal” dimension, that is, as pre-representations of creatures, the ideas both of man and horse are identical with the divine essence; but the connotata (Burley also speaks of ydeata) of those ideas, that is, the creatures man and horse, are distinct from the divine essence: Therefore Augustine says in his book On 83 Questions, that they were from eternity exemplary models representing things to be created (. . .). (. . .) the idea of man and the idea of horse are really identical, because they are the same as the divine essence; nevertheless, they are different with respect to their connotation, because the idea of man connotes man and not horse, and the idea of horse connotes horse and not man.29

27) In question 4 of his Quaestiones super Sophisticos Elenchos (Burley (2003), 162), Burley also mentions a non-human intelligence in his argumentation. As a reply to an objection according to which a vocal sound (vox) cannot be equivocal because, as a bearer of forms, a vocal sound cannot bear at the same time different forms of the same kind (in the present case, different rationes significandi), Burley states that this would be true if the rationes significandi were real forms like whitenesses for example. However, the rationes significandi at stake are not real but intentional forms ( formae intentionales) which can exist simultaneously in the same subject as, for example, a vocal sound. To reinforce his answer, Burley describes the case of the separate intelligences “who contain eternally all the species of intelligible things”. 28) Burley (1998), 52: “Ex istis potest patere error quorundam dicencium quod omnes res intellectae a deo ab eterno sunt idem quod essencia divina”. 29) Burley (1998), 46-48: “Et ideo ponit Augustinus in libello suo De Octoginta Tribus Questionibus quod ab eterno fuerunt <sc. Ydee> exemplaria representancia res faciendas. (. . .) ydea hominis et ydea equi sunt idem realiter, quia sunt idem quod essencia divina, sunt tamen diversa quantum ad connotata, quia ydea hominis connotat hominem et non equum, et ydea equi connotat equum et non hominem”.


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Now, as things to be created the connotata or ydeata horse and man are eternally and objectively present in the divine mind, and are distinct from the divine essence only in an intelligible way.30 We can now, I think, try to bring together the different pieces of the puzzle: the problem of the permanence of truth, that is, of the generalisation of a correspondence-theory of truth, is solved by Burley thanks to the notion of the objective being of universal natures, propositions and syllogisms, in the precise sense of their being permanent objects of permanent intellection by a non-human intellect. In his earlier logical works, Burley speaks of intelligentia; in his later metaphysical tract on universals, he speaks of the divine mind and explicitly links his solution of the problem with his interpretation of Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis. Coming back to the example we started from, we can now say that what grants the truth of a proposition like ‘Caesar est Caesar’ where Cesar is not alive anymore, is the identity of Cesar with himself as objectively present in, that is, eternally thought by, a non-human intellect.31 Wyclif and Divine Truth-Making There is a very strong truth-making principle in Wyclif ’s thought. As Antony Kenny puts in the notes of his translation of the De universalibus (c.1374): “According to <Wyclif>, predication not just the attachment of a predicate to a subject within a sentence, but the feature of the real world which makes such a predication true.”32 As we did in Burley, we also find in Wyclif the idea that truth possesses a kind of permanence by being permanently the object of intellection of some intellect—human, or non-human. In his De ente—a metaphysical work already mentioned when examining Wyclif ’s typology of truth33—he states that if one wants to know which of the four kinds of truth depend on an intellect, and

30)

Burley (1998), 50-54: “Dicendum quod ydeata fuerunt eterna obiective in essencia divina, hoc est ab eterno erant representata et intellecta a deo. (. . .). Concedo quod res creanda est aliud a deo accipiendo ly ‘aliud’ ut est differentia entis transcendentis; et eciam quoad ens accipiendo ly ‘ens’ ut est nomen maxime transcendens, quia ens isto modo dictum est convertibile com hoc communi ‘intelligibile’”. 31) Similar theories of the permanence of truth are found in Augustine’s Soliloquia (II.2), Gregory of Rimini’s Lectura (1978-1987), t. 3, 228 and in the Abreviatio of Adam Wodeham’s Lectura by Henry Totting of Oyta (1512), 118r. 32) Wyclif (1985b), 182. 33) See above, p. 286.

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which do not, one has to say that each kind of truth depends on an intellect, provided we do not restrict the notion of intellect to the human one.34 Thus, the semantic and semiotic truths of a sentence, the truth of a judgment as considered by a logician and the ontological truth of reality all are dependent on an intellect: the first three depend immediately on the human intellect, the fourth on the divine intellect. But all four depend ultimately on the divine intellect, and this for two reasons:35 first, because whatever is created or caused exists primarily in the divine intellect; second, because the divine intellect is responsible for the intelligibility of the world with respect to our intellectual faculty as well as its possible objects. As for necessary truths like mathematical propositions, they depend only on the divine intellect. Indeed, says Wyclif, if all intellects were destroyed—read: all human intellects—God would still know that 2 plus 3 equals 5.36 Still, and even if there cannot be any human science capable of giving an accurate account of such truths per se, they nevertheless have a cause: And thus there cannot be a science that would be adequate to those sacred things that are analytical truths. Therefore, Augustine writes in De doctrina Christiana book 2, chapter 32: ‘that truth of connections has not been instituted, but only noticed by human beings, since it is in the eternal nature of things by divine institution’.37

We, as human, can grasp these divine truths, not because we are able to see what is in the divine mind, but because the intelligibility of created things somehow provides us with access to those eternal truths. Now if God, or the divine mind, is the ultimate cause of such necessary truths, one must be careful on one hand, not to identify them simpliciter with God (because they are many, and God is one), and on the other hand, not to separate them simpliciter from God (because if anything is eternal, then that thing can only be God): 34)

Wyclif (1909), 105-106. Wyclif (1909), 108. 36) Wyclif (1909), 105. Although mathematical true propositions like ‘2 + 3 = 5’ are not ontological truths in the same sense as, for example, the existence of Socrates is one (if Socrates exists), they share a common property with the ontological truth, namely their subsisting independently of any human intellect. Furthermore, Wyclif suggests a connection between mathematical and ontological truth. 37) Wyclif (1909), 105-106: “Et tamen inpossibile sit dari sciencia proporcionata illis sanctis que de virtute sermonis sunt veritates. Unde Augustinus, 2° De doctrina christiana 32°, sic scribit: ‘illa veritas coneccionum non instituta est, set animadversa ab hominibus, cum sit in rerum racione perpetua et divinitus instituta”. For the reference to Augustine, see De doctrina Christiana, II.32. 35)


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(. . .) no such truth, although it has existed forever, expresses an essence or a nature which is eternal in such a way that it can only be God. (. . .) Nevertheless, formally speaking, there is no doubt that they are mutually distinct, as well as distinct from God, as we read in Augustine’s question 46 De ydeis.38

Necessary or eternal truths are in God just as other res rationis are in Him, that is: without having to be really distinct from Him. There is a real identity and a formal distinction in God between its essence and, for example, eternal truths.39 Making God’s intellect the place where necessary or eternal truths subsist, is not very original. But Wyclif goes one significant step further: in addition, contingent truths like possibilities, past and future truths also subsist in the divine intellect. Moreover these truths are said to be signified by the corresponding propositions.40 Certainly, when we utter a true proposition such as, for example, ‘Sor est homo’, we are not talking about God’s intellect nor about its content. But if it so happens that the proposition ‘Sor est homo’ is true, what makes it true, ultimately is in the divine intellect. As Wyclif puts it in the De universalibus, commenting Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis: And if it is asked: what is such an ability to produce <truth>? It is replied that it is nothing which differs essentially from God. Thus, formally, it is not something but a thing of reason, it does not belong to any created genus but it is present by reduction in the same genus in which is its ideatum, since it is its principle, just as the idea of human being is in the human species, and consequently in the genus of substance, and in a way, speaking about the species, it is per se the species of human being.41

What makes propositions true, regardless of their contingency or necessity, are the intelligible traces left by God’s Ideas in creation.42 The Ideas themselves are 38)

Wyclif (1909), 106: “(. . .) nulla talis veritas, quamvis sit eterna a parte ante, dicit aliquam essenciam vel naturam sic eternam, nisi solum deum. (. . .) Et tamen, loquendo formaliter, non <est> dubium quin distinguntur ab invicem et a deo, ut patet per Augustinum De ydeis questione 46”. 39) Wyclif (1909), 112. 40) Wyclif (1909), 111. 41) Wyclif (1985a), 373: “Et si quaeratur: quid est talis productibilitas? Dicitur quod nihil essentialiter nisi Deus. Formaliter autem non est aliquid sed res rationis, non per se in aliquo genere creato sed per reductionem in eodem genere in quo est suum ideatum cum sit eius principium, ut idea hominis est in specie humana, et per consequens in genere substantiae, et uno modo, loquendo de specie, est per se species hominis (. . .)”. 42) In the following lines of the text quoted in the previous note, Wyclif calls upon Robert Grosseteste and his own conception of the relation between divine ideas and universals as exposed in his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, I.7, Cf. Robert Grosseteste (1981), 139.96-142.157.

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in the divine mind, but what human beings can grasp directly and start from in their intellectual activity, are in the created things themselves as ideata.

Conclusion Let us conclude with three points. First, this short study of the Burleyan propositio in re and the Wyclifian veritas quae pertinet ad logicum has shown that Wyclif ’s approach is dependent upon Burley’s, whose model is in turn Augustine’s description of ocular vision in the De trinitate. The common preoccupation of these three thinkers is with an explanation of how the mind, interacting with the extra-mental world by means of its intentio, produces specific, intentional objects: the content of sense perception, for Augustine, the truth which pertains to the logician, for Wyclif, and for Burley, the ultimate significate of propositions.43 Second, when, in the context of correspondence-theories of truth as we have them in Burley and Wyclif, it comes down to the question of how such theorie work in cases in which no actual signifcates exist—as in the case of true propositions about non-existent objects, or in the case of eternal truths—both Burley and Wyclif call upon a non-human intellect as the place where that which can be expressed by human sentences subsists as a permanent object of thought; and they do so in reference to Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis. Third, as for the specific question of the permanence of a proposition which is not actually formed by anyone, Burley seems to rely, on at least two occasions, on an Avicennian-like cosmological gnoseology. In spite of the fact that the terminology and the dialectical context of these passages are similar to those in which Burley uses Augustine’s Quaestio de ideis, one cannot, I think, simply replace ‘intelligentia’ in the earlier texts by ‘mens divina’—one sufficient reason for that being that the plural ‘intelligentiis’ used there by Burley is incompatible with divine simplicity. This brief analysis of Burley’s and Wyclif ’s solutions to the crucial problems of (a) giving an explanation of mind/world interaction and (b) generalizing a strict correspondence theory of truth, has shown that Augustine played an important role in such matters in the fourteenth century. Realist thinkers like

43)

For the role played by Augustine not only in medieval theories of intentionality, but also in Franz Brentano’s characterization of intentional objects as possessing a so called mental inexistence, see Perler (2002), 403-405.


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Burley and Wyclif found in Augustine’s works, besides his definition and classification of signs, and theory of the inner word, constitutive elements for the semantic and ontological aspects of their propositional logic. These elements became constituent of what we may call their theories of intentionality and truth-making.


www.brill.nl/viv

Names That Can Be Said of Everything: Porphyrian Tradition and ‘Transcendental’ Terms in Twelfth-Century Logic* Luisa Valente La Sapienza Università di Roma

Abstract In an article published in 2003, Klaus Jacobi—using texts partially edited in De Rijk’s Logica Modernorum—demonstrated that twelfth-century logic contains a tradition of reflecting about some of the transcendental names (nomina transcendentia). In addition to reinforcing Jacobi’s thesis with other texts, this contribution aims to demonstrate two points: 1) That twelfth-century logical reflection about transcendental terms has its origin in the logica vetus, and especially in a passage from Porphyry Isagoge and in Boethius’s commentary on it. In spite of the loss of the major part of the Aristotelian corpus, the twelfth-century masters in logic still received some Aristotelian theses concerning the notions of one and being via Porphyry and Boethius; on the basis of such theses, they were able to elaborate a sort of proto-theory of the transcendentals as trans-categorical terms. 2) That this theory is centred on the idea that there exists a particular group of names which have the property that they can be said of everything; this group includes “being”, “one”, “thing” and “something” (ens, unum, res, aliquid). Twelfth-century masters in logic try to question the (originally Aristotelian) thesis that these terms are equivocal, although they do not deny it completely. Keywords transcendental terms, one, being, thing, something, Porphyry, Boethius, Peter Abelard, twelfth-century logic

In his book on the medieval theory of transcendentals published 1996, Jan A. Aertsen—following D. H. Pouillon—suggests that the first mature exposition *) I am grateful to Frosty Loechel for assisting in the English translation. Particular thanks to Riccardo Chiaradonna, Sten Ebbsesen, and Alfonso Maierù for the very useful information and suggestions they provided. Any mistakes or imprecisions are of course my own responsibility. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217786

L. Valente / Vivarium 45 (2007) 298-310

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of this theory is the presentation of the prima and communissima ens, unum, verum, bonum contained in the Summa de Bono written by Philip the Chancellor around 1225-1228.1 As sources of this theory Aertsen suggests principally the new Aristotle (Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics) as well as writers in Arabic (mainly Avicenna).2 The studies which followed the book confirm this interpretation, though some of them have called attention to the role played by thirteenth-century logic in the constitution of the theory of transcendentals.3 Some researchers asserted the existence, in the Latin world before the impact of the Greek-Arabic philosophy, of elements which go in the direction of the later theory of transcendentals; but they stress that such elements were isolated and occasional.4 In an article published in 2003, however, Klaus Jacobi demonstrated that twelfth-century logic contains a tradition of reflecting about some of the transcendental names (nomina transcendentia).5 In his article Jacobi used texts presented and partially edited in L. M. De Rijk Logica Modernorum; consequently in this paper I shall consider almost exclusively twelfth-century logical texts not included in De Rijk’s pioneering work. In addition to reinforcing Jacobi’s thesis with other texts, my contribution aims to demonstrate two points: 1) First of all, that twelfth-century logical reflection about (some of the) transcendental terms has its origin in the logica vetus, and especially in a passage from Porphyry Isagoge and in Boethius’s commentary on it. The 1)

Aertsen (1996); Pouillon (1939). For a general review of the literature concerning medieval theory of transcendentals, see Aertsen (1991, 1999). See also Marenbon (1992), Ventimiglia (1998), Aertsen (2000), Pickavé (2003)—with a bibliography of Aertsen’s studies—, Valente (2005) and (2006). 2) Aertsen (1996), 419ff. See also Gracia (1992), 117f., who mentions Aristotle’s Metaphysica 993b30, 1003b25, 1004b15, 1051a34, 1061a15, and Ethica Nicomachea 1096a23, and, about the Arabic sources, De Libera (1994). 3) Cf. Ventimiglia (1998), 526, Aertsen (2000), and Pini (2003). De Libera (1994) had already noticed the role of 13th century logic. 4) See for example Gracia (1992), in part. 117ff., Marenbon (1992), S. MacDonald (1991) and (1992). 5) “Transcendent names” (“nomina transcendentia”)—a term which is usd in the treatise Dialectica Monacensis; see Jacobi (2003), 34—seems to be a better term for what modern scholars used to call ‘transcendentals’ in the Middle Ages, since this is quite a late piece of terminology. For the purpose of the present paper, the paraphrase ‘name which can be said of everything’ for the group ens, unum, res, aliquid is probably the most precise; nevertheless I shall call such terms in general ‘transcendentals’ since this denomination is more common among scholars.

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basic idea is that, in spite of the loss of the major part of the Aristotelian corpus, the twelfth-century masters in logic still received some Aristotelian theses concerning the notions of one and being via Porphyry and Boethius; and that, on the basis of such theses, they were able to elaborate a sort of proto-theory of the transcendentals as trans-categorical terms. 2) The second aim of my paper is to show that this theory is centred on the idea that there exists a particular group of names which have the specific property that they can be said of everything; this group includes “being”, “one”, “thing” and “something” (ens, unum, res, aliquid ), while “good”, “true”, and “beautiful” are not part of the group. Twelfth century masters in logic try to question the (originally Aristotelian) thesis that these terms are equivocal, although they do not deny it completely.

Porphyry’s Isagoge and Its Tradition In the section on species in his Isagoge, Porphyry first defines the notions of most general genus ( generalissimum, following the Boethian translation), lowest species (specialissimum), and of middle genus and species (ea quae in medio sunt). Then he goes on to describe the difference between the tree of the genera and any other tree, as for example the family tree: while in the family tree we usually tend to go back to one ancestor, in the genus and species tree we are compelled to stop at a set of ten ancestors, ten generalissima which are not species of a more general genus; these are the ten categories. Porphyry continues writing that if anyone thinks that there is a unique most general genus to which the ten categories belong as species, and that this most general genus is being (ens), he is wrong. If being were the only genus, common to all things, then all things would be called “beings” univocally. It is true that “being” can be said of everything, but this happens only because “being” is then used equivocally: that is, by a nominal community, not by a community of definition. Being then, for Porphyry, is not the most general genus, and the word “being” is used equivocally when it is predicated of terms which fall under different categories; or, at least, this is the thesis of Aristotle presented here by Porphyry.6 6)

Porphyry (1966), 11: 7-12: 6: “Sed in familiis quidem plerumque ad unum reducuntur principium, verbi gratia Iovem, in generibus autem et speciebus non se sic habet; neque enim est commune unum genus omnium ens, nec omnia eiusdem generis sunt secundum unum supremum genus, quemadmodum dicit Aristoteles, sed sint posita (quemadmodum in Praedicamentis) prima decem genera quasi prima decem principia. Vel, si omnia quis entia vocet, aequivoce (inquit) nuncupabit, non univoce; si enim unum esset commune omnium genus ens, univoce entia dicerentur, cum autem decem sint prima, communio secundum nomen est solum, non etiam secundum


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In the Isagoge, Platonism and Aristotelianism are inextricable interlaced. The thesis that “being” is said of everything non-univocally is present in Plotinus, Enn. VI, 1.1., 15-30. Plotinus says that the Aristotelian categories cannot include both the sensible and the intelligible worlds, since no term can be said univocally of the sensible and the intelligible worlds. Plotinus is here applying to the Platonic distinction between the sensible and the intelligible worlds the following principle: there cannot be any synonymous genus for a series of elements which are disposed on a scale of priority and posteriority—a principle expounded by Aristotle in Metaphysics B 3, 999a6-10 and Eudemian Ethics 8, 1218a1ff. Moreover, Porphyry, in the Isagoge passage to which we have referred, mentions Aristotle explicitly, and he may have had in mind not only the Categories (ex. 1a1-15 and 3b7-9) and the Topics (109b4-7) concerning the notion of univocity and equivocity; but also Metaphysics B 3, 998b22 (where Aristotle explains that neither being nor one are genera even if they “are said of everything which exists”), and h 2, 1003b5-6 (about the multiple senses of “being”). Aristotle, then, may be not only the main direct source for the theory of transcendentals in the thirteenth century with his Metaphysics and Ethics, but also one of its indirect sources, following a continuous line which descends along the centuries and goes through the late ancient Platonism and Aristotelianism, that is, through Plotinus and the short treatise by Porphyry; and mainly through Boethius. Boethius’s Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge In his second commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, commenting on the chapter about species, Boethius confirms the theses about the term “being” expounded by Porphyry that he had already noted in his first commentary: 1) There cannot be one unique principle for all things; 2) Some have asserted that a common genus for all things exists and that this is being, since the term “being” is predicated of everything; 3) Aristotle denied that all things may be connected to one unique principle and he found ten most general genera for all things: these are the ten categories; 4) When a term is predicated commonly of many things, it is not necessarily a genus for these things. A term which is said of many things is a genus for those things only if it is said of them univocally, that is, with the same definition; but this definitionis rationem quae secundum nomen est.” Whether Porphyry assents here to the Aristotelian thesis of the equivocity of the term “being”, or he is just referring it, is not clear from the text.

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5) is not true for the term “being”: “being” is said of all categories but not with the same definition; therefore, it is said of all categories equivocally and not univocally (id quod dicitur ens, etsi de omnibus dicitur praedicamentis, quoniam tamen nulla eius definitio inueniri potest quae omnibus praedicamentis possit aptari, idcirco non dicitur uniuoce de praedicamentis, id est ut genus, sed aequiuoce, id est ut uox plura significans).7 Boethius not only reaffirms what Porphyry had already said in the passage from the Isagoge which he is commenting, but goes on to introduce the notion of one along with the notion of being, probably having in mind Aristotles’ Metaphysics (B 3, 998b22). Boethius says that being can not be genus of all things since it is completely equivalent with one: both can be said of all things. But it is not possible that the same species have two “coextensive” genera: it follows that neither being nor one are genera of all things. Besides, being and one cannot be genus or species of each other: in fact, we can neither say that one is genus of being, nor that being is genus of one. They are so identical that they cannot be predicated one of the other, but genus and species “do not convert” (quod dicimus ens, unum est et quod unum dicitur, ens est; genus autem et species sibi minime conuertuntur. si igitur praedicatur ens de omnibus praedicamentis, praedicatur etiam unum. [. . .] duo igitur aequalia singulorum praedicamentorum genera sunt, quod fieri non potest).8 It may be worth noting, as a sign of the great permeability between the realms of logic and theology, that the principle of the convertibility of ens and unum is explicitly asserted by Boethius in his theological treatise Contra Eutychen et Nestorium. In the fourth chapter, Boethius deduces the necessity for Christ to be one person from the thesis that a duplicity of persons would make it impossible for Christ to be one being and so would make him to be nothing at all, since “one and being convert” (Quod enim non est unum, nec esse omnino potest; esse enim atque unum convertitur et quodcumque unum est est).9 In the twelfth century, Gilbert of Poitiers, commenting on this passage, does mention the principle of the convertibility of ens and unum as a “topic from which philosophers derive many propositions” and a “proposition known per se”.10 7)

Boethius (1906), 221: 13-223: 24. Cf. also Boethius (1880), 77: 1-13. Boethius (1906), 223: 24-224: 17. 9) Boethius (2000), 220: 298-300. 10) Gilbert of Poitiers (1966), 300: 72-74: “Quod enim non est unum, nec esse omnino potest: sicut etiam quod non est, non est unum. Est enim philosophis multarum propositionum locus et per se nota propositio quod esse atque unum uniuersaliter conuertitur. Quodcumque enim est, unum est. Et quodcumque unum est, est. ” 8)


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“Everything which is, is because it is one” Another passage from Porphyry’s Isagoge is interesting from our point of view. After having declared that he will try to answer Porphyry’s question about the status of genera and species, but before explaining his answer Boethius presents an aporetic argument: one can neither say that genera and species are, nor that they subsist only in the intellect.11 While arguing the first part of the aporia, that is, the thesis that genera and species are not, Boethius affirms that genera and species, being common to more entities, do not possess unity; and that therefore they cannot be absolutely, since “everything which is, is, because it is one” (omne enim quod est, idcirco est, quia unum est).12 We find here the prototype of the adage quidquid est (or omne quod est), ideo est quia unum (numero) est: a formula which would become widely diffused among the theologians of the 12th century: it is used for example in the commentaries on Boethius’ Opuscula by Thierry of Chartres and his school,13 by the Porretan anonymus Invisibilia Dei,14 by Alain of Lille15 and others.16

Twelfth-Century Logic In twelfth-century logic the transcendental terms appear mostly either within a commentary on the Porphyrian passage about ens said equivocally of all things, or within the discussion about the notion of equivocity. In both these contexts these terms are characterised as those “names which can be said of everything”. I shall now examine this theme in some individual twelfthcentury logicians.17 The Dialectica of Garlandus of Besançon In his Dialectica, Garlandus writes about the supercategoriality of being in the first book, on non-complex terms, in the section on equivocity of the treatise

11) Boethius (1906), 161: 14-164: 2. Cfr. Maioli (1974), 132ff., with a translation of the Boethian passage on pages 139f.; De Libera (1999), 205ff. 12) Boethius (1906), 162: 2-3. 13) Thierry of Chartres (1971), 80: 62. Cf. also William of Conches (1999), 187: 20-21. 14) Invisibilia Dei (1973), 128: par. 59. 15) Alain of Lille (1981), 126: par. 3. 16) Cf. Vicaire (1937), passim, and Valente (2006). 17) For similar analyses in Introductiones Montane minores, Tractatus Anagnini, Ars Meliduna, Dialectica Monacensis, Summe Metenses, and some fragments on grammatic, see Jacobi (2003).

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about categories. The Isagoge is clearly the text which Garlandus has in mind. But Garlandus is not just a repetitor of the late antique tradition, he adds some personal points to the subject. In particular, we can note the entry, along with the term ens, of the term res: and we shall see this term appearing along with ens more times in logic and in theology long before Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas would insert it in their lists of transcendentals in the wake of, as it is usually said, the Metaphysics of Avicenna.18 The main points of Garlandus’s expositions are the following: – ens and res are equivocal because of the will of the impositores (consilio); they have been chosen for the sake of brevity and they name briefly all things together;19 – ens is not the most general genus for all things since it is equivocal, because it has different definitions, like the word canis;20 – ens is not the most general genus since, even if we assume the definition: “being is what is perceived by the mind and distinguished by the reason”, the term ens would still be equivocal;21 – ens is not the most general genus for all categorical terms since every category has its own modi significandi; but it cannot be admitted that the species of the same genus had different modi significandi.22

18)

On res as a transcendental in the 13th century see Ducharme (1940), Oeing-Hanhoff (1982), Aertsen (2002), with bibliography; in this article Aertsen considers Avicennas Methapysics (in part. tr. I, ch. 5) as the source for the introduction of the term res as a transcendental in medieval philosophy. See also Ventimiglia (1998), on res as transcendental in connection with the theory of the infinite names, and Hamesse (1982). 19) Garlandus (1959), 14: 10-13: “Equivoca duobus modis dicuntur, casu et consilio. [. . .] Consilio, idest per consilium nomine (sic ed.; nomina?) imponentium, alia causa brevitatis, ut ens et res, alia per similitudinem, ut homo pictus. Causa brevitatis ideo ut omnia insimul breviter nominentur”. Res appears togheter with esse and unum as equivocal terms also in John of Salisbury’ Metalogicon: John of Salisbury (1991), 177: 40-42: “Ceterum quoniam esse, et unum, et res, multipliciter dicuntur, uidebit quisque quomodo interpretetur significationem”. 20) Garlandus (1959), 14: 14-17: “Contra illos qui disputant in Porphyrio dicentes ens esse unum genus omnium, accipe hanc apertam rationem: ‘quare equivocum sit ens’, ideo scilicet quia vadit ad diversa significata per diversas diffinitiones et significationes, sicuti ‘canis’ equivocum”. 21) Garlandus (1959), 14: 32-15: 4. 22) Garlandus (1959), 15: 5-19.


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Abelard’s Dialectica In his Dialectica Abelard speaks of ens in relation with the discussion about the different types of equivocity, and he seems to be trying to limit and circumscribe its equivocity. It is worth noting that, as in the Logica Ingredientibus (see below), here ens does not appear alone, but in a series of terms which now contains res and “other names of the different categories”; names, Abelard says, which are communia summa et suprema principia. They are equivocal because, as the infinite names, they are not imposed on the basis of the fact that the beings on which they are imposed have a common substance. Nevertheless they are said of all things because they have a single imposition, and there is one cause for this imposition: the cause for the imposition to all things of the term res, ens etc. is to show that the things do exist: Similarly both “non-body” and other infinite words are said to be equivocal to those things which they nominate, since they are not imposed from a common substance. In this way also Aristotle included with equivocals “ens” and “res” and other names which belong to different categories, of which there can be no thing that is according to the same substantial being—that is, they are general, overall names and supreme principles. For perhaps “ens” and “res”, in that they have a single imposition, made once, on all things [. . .] also have a single cause of imposition. For “ens” is imposed on all existing things because each is one of the things that exist.23

Moreover, ens, res and cetera diversorum predicamentorum nomina, if we consider carefully, do not have a definition, because we would be compelled to insert in the definition the very same names which are to be defined.24

23)

Peter Abelard (1970), 565: 20-33: “Similiter et ‘non corpus’ et cetera infinita ad ea que nominantur, quibus ex communi substantia non sunt imposita, dicuntur equivoca. Sic et ‘ens’ et ‘res’ et cetera diversorum predicamentorum nomina, quorum nulla potest esse secundum idem substantiale esse—communia scilicet summa sunt et suprema principia—, equivocis Aristotiles aggregavit. Nam et fortasse ‘ens’ et ‘res’ secundum id quod unam habuerunt ad omnia et semel facta impositionem [ . . .], et unam impositionis causam habere. ‘Ens’ enim [in] omnibus existentibus inde est impositum quod aliqua sit rerum existentium.” Cf. also Theologia Christiana IV, in Peter Abelard (1969a), II, 342-343, par. 157, where it is said that est and res are equivocal with respect to the substance and the properties. 24) Peter Abelard (1970), 565: 36-566: 2: “Insuper, si diffinitionis proprietatem inspiciamus, ‘ens’ et ‘res’ omnino diffinitionem recusant. Si enim ‘ens’ ita determines: ‘res existens’, ‘existens’, quod idem est in sensu cum ‘ens’, bene ipsum non diffinit; idem enim per se ipsum minime diffiniri potest. Si vero dicamus quod non est non-existens, ‘non-existens’ cognosci non potest nisi per ‘existens’.”

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Abelard’s Logica Ingredientibus In Abelard’s Logica Ingredientibus, Glossae super Porphyrium, where he discusses the passage we are considering here from the Isagoge, we find a long discussion about the equivocity of ens, and this discussion has its starting point as usual in the second commentary on the Isagoge by Boethius. Concerning the fact that ens is not a genus, Abelard just reports without any objections the Aristotelian thesis which was presented by Porphyry. Then Abelard defines, following Porphyry, the ten categories as the ten names which are the origin of the meaning of any other name.25 After that, however, Abelard discusses the question of the equivocity of ens with respect to the ten categories—and here his position seems to be different from that of Boethius and Garlandus. Both Boethius and Garlandus had commented on Porphyry by explaining that the equivocity of ens with respect to the categories had its origin in the fact that there is no common definition of ens; therefore, ens has different meanings, exactly like canis. But Abelard interprets the Porphyrian formula “The commonness is just a nominal one, it doesn’t entail an identity in definition” (“communio secundum nomen est solum, non etiam secundum definitionis rationem”). It does not mean that ens has different definitions, but rather that it does not have a common definition in substantia with respect to the categories: this is a definition the terms of which are said of the subject in the category of substance: the definitions of animal and of rational being for example are definitions in substantia of man or Socrates, while the definition of white thing is not one.26 The same argument is presented in a passage from the Glossae super Praedicamenta about the equivocal terms. Here Abelard speaks about the equivocity not only of the term ens, but also of the term unum and of “every name which contains things of different categories.” Such terms are not equivocal in the sense that they have different meanings, like canis, but in the sense that they

25) Peter Abelard (1919-1933), 51: 19-52: 27. Cf. also Abelard, Editio supra Porphyrium, in Abelard (1969b), 17: 27-18: 19. 26) Peter Abelard (1919-33), 53: 5-31; in part. 16-23: “Cum itaque omne genus de specie vel individuo in substantia praedicatur, ita videlicet, quod suus sensus in illis concludatur, substantia vero vel qualitas nil de sententia entis denotat, ut supra diximus, non potest ulla definitio data secundum nomen entis in substantia de praedicamentis praedicari. Unde entis nomen Aristoteles ad praedicamenta univocum non appellat, sicut nec album univoce de subiectis substantiis praedicari vult, non quia habeat diversas definitiones, sed quia non habet communem substantiae rationem ad primas substantias.” On the “definitio substantiae”, cf. 118: 4-7. On the difference between Abelard and Boethius on this point see Marenbon (1992).


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do not have a definition which may be predicated of the predicaments in the category of substance.27 With Abelard, then, we find some new elements which go in the direction of the future theory of transcendentals: the list of such terms increases and contains now, beside ens and unum, also the term res as well “all names which are said of all categories”; the assertion of their equivocity is questioned and it is said that there is in any case a common cause of the imposition of such names to all things. The Anonymus D’Orvillensis and Anonymus Patavinus on the Categories of Aristotle The Aristotelian and Porphyrian thesis of the equivocity of ens, unum, and similar general terms is also questioned in two twelfth-century commentaries on the Categories: the Anonymus D’Orvillensis28 and the Anonymus Patavinus.29 These two commentaries agree with Abelard’s observation that the transcendental names cannot be defined. This is why—these two texts seem to say— such terms are in a middle position between equivocal and univocal terms. Ens, says the Anonymus D’Orvillensis, is both equivocal and univocal with respect to every thing: We concede that there even is a signification in which all equivocals are univocals, for all share the name ens in the same signification, and thus univocally; and they all share the same name, but no account assigned according to the name, and thus they share it equivocally; thus all things are equivocal and univocal under this name ens.30

A similar argument is expressed in the other commentary on the Categories, the Anonymus Patavinus. The author, commenting on the section on the 27) Peter Abelard (1919-33), 117: 36-118: 1: “Quo etiam modo ens et unum et quodlibet nomen res diversorum praedicamentorum continens de ipsis praedicamentis aequivoce dicitur, non quod multa sint vocabula in sensu, sicut est canis, sed quia definitionem non habent in substantia de praedicamentis praedicabilem.” 28) Ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, D’Orville 207, ff. 1ra-24vb, ed. Ebbesen (1999); cf. Ebbesen (2000) and Spruyt (2003). 29) Ms. Padova, BU 2087, ff. 1ra-48vb. On this commentary see De Rijk (1966) and Spruyt (2003). 30) Ed. Ebbesen (1999), 259: “Item, queritur utrum aliqua aequivoca sint univoca. Quod concedimus, immo in aliqua significatione omnia aequivoca sunt univoca, omnia enim participant hoc nomine ‘ens’ in eadem significatione, et ita univoce; et omnia participant eodem nomine et nulla ratione assignata secundum illud, et ita aequivoce; ergo omnia aequivocantur et univocantur sub hoc nomine ‘ens’.” Translation in Ebbesen (2003a), 358f.

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equivocal terms of the Categories, first of all describes the terms res, ens, unum, and aliquid as, among the equivocal terms, those which are more noteworthy than others; moreover, Aristotle would affirm that they are equally predicated of everything.31 We find here, together with the terms ens, unum, and res, which we have already seen, also aliquid. This is an important integration, especially if we consider that this term plays an important role in twelfth-century discussions about theological language32 as well as in the mature theories of transcendentals, for example in Thomas Aquinas.33 The Anonymous then poses the question whether the Aristotelian description of equivocals is valid for every equivocal term, that is also for res, ens and unum. In the argument for a positive answer, the Anonymous explicitly mentions the passage from the Isagoge from which we have started; the argument for a negative answer is the thesis, which we have seen in Abelard, that these terms can not be equivocal on the basis of different definitions, since they do not have a definition at all: there is no more general term which can be used in order to ‘begin’ their definition.34 The solution to the question is not clear: the author nevertheless seems to favour the thesis that they are equivocal.

31) Anonymus Patavinus, Comm. Cat. [C 15], Padova, BU, 2087, f. 2va: “Iterum, prius tractat de aequivocis quam de univocis quia inter aequivocos comp . . . dicuntur (transcr. Spruyt: communiter dantur; comprehenduntur? computantur?) termini digniores aliis sicut ‘res’ et ‘ens’ ‘unum’ et ‘aliquid’, de quibus dicit Aristoteles quod aequaliter de omnibus rebus praedicantur, et ex hac dignitate prius tractat de aequivocis quam de univocis.” I would like to thank Sten Ebbesen for allowing me to use his transcritption of passages from the Anonymus Patavinus. The same passage is quoted, but with a different reading, in Spruyt (2003), 333, n. 14. 32) Cf. Valente (2005), 223-237. 33) On aliquid as a transcendental see Schmitz (1981), Ventimiglia (1997), 208ff., Ventimiglia (1998), Rosemann (1998). Res and aliquid are considered as transcendentals not only by Thomas Aquinas (De veritate q.1 a.1. et alibi), but also by Bonaventure, Duns Scoto, the De natura generis falsely attributed to Thomas Aquinas and, in logic, by the Dialectica Monacensis (res) and the Summae Metenses (aliquid ). Cf. De Libera (1994), 142 and 148ff. 34) Ms. Padova, BU 2087, f. 2va; passage quoted by Ebbesen (2003a), 359, n. 44: “Quaeritur/ Quare [[i]] (?) haec descriptio (sc.: Aequivoca dicuntur quorum nomen commune est, ratio vero assignata secundum id nomen est diversa) conveniat omnibus aequivocis. Si omnibus, ergo istis, sc. rei, enti et uni. Quod haec sit aequivoca probatur ex †positioni† Ar(istotelis) et Por(phyrio) dicente ‘Nam si quis vocet omnia entia, aequivoce, inquit, nuncupabit et non univoce.’ Et si hoc nomen ‘ens’ convenit omnibus aequivoce et non univoce, et sic est aequivocum. Sed probatur quod non est aequivocum, quia non est sic commune pluribus quod ratio assignata secundum illud nomen sit diversa, nulla enim ratio eius est. Quod nulla sit probatur: Omnis


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Ars Meliduna Another, important logical treatise from the twelfth century, the Ars Meliduna,35 affirms that the terms—in this order—res, aliquid, ens, unum “suit everything in accordance with their denotation” (conveniunt cuilibet rei per appellationem), and that they do not signify a universal. If they did, we would have a unique genus for everything, but Aristotle explicitly denies this. Moreover, these terms—as Abelard also says—do not show what the thing of which they are predicated is, but simply that this thing exists.36 This text—which has already been analysed by Jacobi37—seems to me very significant also because it on the one hand evidently refers to the Isagoge in asserting that ens is not the most general genus, and on the other hand anticipates a theme which will be important in the future doctrine of transcendentals. It is said, in fact, that res, ens, unum, and aliquid “conveniunt cuilibet rei per appellationem”: it is hard not to see here an anticipation of the thesis, generally accepted in the thirteenth century, that the transcendental terms transmit different meanings, but have same reference (here appellatio, but later it will be suppositio). Compendium logicae Porretanum That the terms ens, unum, res and aliquid do not signify any universal is affirmed also in an important treatise on logic written by a disciple of Gilbert of Poitiers, the Compendium logicae Porretanum. In this text the list of the four terms appears twice. The first time, in the first part dedicated to problems of “philosophical grammar”, in a paragraph devoted to the verb “be” (sum). Here it is said that ens, unum, aliquid do not signify either a universal or a singular, but that they have an unclear meaning, or that they have no meaning at all.

enim definitio incipit a maiori termino et descendit ad aequalia, ut sit eius aequalis; sed nullus terminus incipit (!) definitionem eius, quia nullus terminus est maior hoc termino ente, quia nullus terminus de pluribus dicitur quam iste, quia hic terminus de omnibus praedicatur et sic nullus terminus incipit eius definitionem, et sic nulla est eius oratio, quia illud nomen non videtur esse aequivocum.” 35) Contained in the ms. Oxford, Digby 174, ff. 211ra-241rb. The treatise can be dated between 1154 and 1180. Cfr. De Rijk (1962-67) II i, 280-281. 36) Ms. Oxford, Digby 174, f. 221va. Cf. De Rijk (1962-67) II i, p. 309: “Nominum alia conveniunt cuilibet rei per appellationem, alia non. Nullum nomen conveniens cuilibet rei significat universale ut res, aliquid, ens et unum. Genus uero quod magis videretur significare <significare> non possunt ne sit unum communem genus omnium, quod prohibet Aristoteles. Preterea assignatione sua non ostenditur de aliquo quid ipse sit sed simpliciter quod sit.” 37) Jacobi (2003), 26ff.

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The group ens, unum, and aliquid is connected with the grammatical problematic of the classification of verbs as adjectival verbs, substantival verbs, and vocative verbs. Substantive and vocative verbs (sum and vocor) have no clear meaning, just as ens, unum and aliquid do not. The author seems to say—but the text is unclear to me—that as sum doesn’t signify either a universal or a singular property, in the same way ens, which derives from sum, has an unclear meaning; and this holds also for unum and aliquid since they are convertible with ens and with each other.38 The second occurrence of the list of the transcendental terms in the Compendium is in the third part of the work, dedicated to problems of ontology, within the reflection about singulars, individuals and universals. In Porretan ontology, everything is numerically one (singular); therefore, the terms singulare, unum, ens, and aliquid range over the same objects ( paria sunt).39

Conclusion In Latin logic, before the entry of the new Aristotle and Avicenna in the thirteenth century, we can find a clear line of thought which—treating of the “names which can be said of everything”—goes in the direction of the later doctrine of transcendentals. A particularly important role in this respect was played by the reception of Porphyry’s Isagoge and of the commentary by Boethius on it. Using these texts, medieval masters elaborated in a continuous line over the centuries old ideas and principles which originally derive from the Antiquity and the Late Antiquity. By the end of the twelfth century, logical reflection about the “overcategorical” names enters the discussions about the univocity or equivocity of theological language. But this is another story.40 38) Compendium logicae Porretanum (1983), 10: “[. . .] nec universale nec singulare est quod significat hoc verbum ‘sum’. [. . .] At cum ‘ens’ retineat significationem sui verbi, ut finitam habeat significationem, ad quod censequuntur et ‘unum’ et ‘aliquid’ et ad idem convertantur utrumque, confusionis patitur detrimentum, nec reperitur ad quod significandum aliquod eorum fuerit inventum, quod confirmat Aristoteles in Analeticis: ‘Non sunt sumenda pro mediis quecumque do omnibus dicuntur’.” 39) Compendium logicae Porretanum (1983), 48: “Notandum quod singulare dicitur res discreta numero, sed quod paria sunt unum et ens et aliquod singulare et aliquid”. 40) Cf. Valente (2005). For the use of the term suprapraedicamentale see Summa Colligite fragmenta, Ms. München Clm 28 799, cit. in Heinzmann (1974), 179, n. 21. The Summa Breves dies hominis defines unum, ens and aliquid as “those names which transcend the most general genera”: “illa quae transcendunt generalissima”, and asserts that at least these names are said of God properly (Ms. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Patr. 136, f. 2rb).


www.brill.nl/viv

Metaphor and the Logicians from Aristotle to Cajetan E. Jennifer Ashworth University of Waterloo, Canada

Abstract I examine the treatment of metaphor by medieval logicians and how it stemmed from their reception of classical texts in logic, grammar, and rhetoric. I consider the relation of the word ‘metaphor’ to the notions of translatio and transumptio, and show that it is not always synonymous with these. I also show that in the context of commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations metaphor was subsumed under equivocation. In turn, it was linked with the notion of analogy not so much in the Greek sense of a similarity between two proportions or relations as in the new medieval sense of being said secundum prius et posterius. Whether or not analogy could be reduced to metaphor, or the reverse, depended on the controversial issue of the number of acts of imposition needed to produce an equivocal term. A spectrum of views is canvassed, including those found in the logic commentaries of John Duns Scotus. Keywords analogy, equivocation, imposition, metaphor, Sophistical Refutations commentaries

In this paper I shall sketch an answer to a series of questions about the treatment of metaphor by medieval logicians. One question is linguistic: are the words “translatio” and “transumptio” synonyms of the word “metaphora”? Three other questions concern analogy and equivocation. First, is metaphor a type of equivocation? Second, is metaphor a type of analogy and if so, what type? Is it linked with analogy in the Greek sense of a similarity between two proportions or relations, or with analogy in the new medieval sense of being said secundum prius et posterius because of some attribution? Third, how many acts of imposition are required for the production of analogical terms and metaphors? This last issue is particularly important, given that words are said


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217795

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E. J. Ashworth / Vivarium 45 (2007) 311-327

to be used proprie only when used in accordance with an act of imposition, and that metaphors are normally said to be taken improprie. I will take up these questions in the context of three sets of texts. I will start with some remarks about the texts of Aristotle and their reception in the Middle Ages. Secondly, I will look at translatio and transumptio in ancient grammar and rhetoric. Finally, I will look at medieval logic texts, especially commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations. My study will show how ancient traditions in logic, grammar and rhetoric were interwoven and used to tackle specifically medieval problems. Aristotle played a prominent role in the story, but not primarily because of his explicit discussions of metaphor in his Poetics and Rhetoric. Stoic thinkers contributed the theory of tropes or figures of speech; and Neoplatonic commentators such as Porphyry influenced Boethius’s discussion of equivocation and metaphor. The thirteenth century theory of analogy itself grew out of the interweaving of problems in Christian theology, Aristotelian metaphysics and Aristotelian logic, but was enriched by the long Greek and Arabic tradition of analysing ambiguous terms as being said secundum prius et posterius. The resulting syntheses, especially in late thirteenth and early fourteenth century British logicians, show a skilful use of whatever parts of ancient traditions seemed relevant to the particular interests and doctrines of the author in question.

Aristotle Aristotle discussed metaphor in his Rhetoric and his Poetics. These two works came to be regarded by the late Greek commentators of the School of Alexandria as part of the Organon, that is, as part of logic in a wide sense, and the Arabs followed this established tradition. Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Simon of Faversham, among others, followed the Arabs, at least in principle. However, the practice was rather different, given the relative inaccessibility of the two works. It is tempting to think that they contain the origins of medieval discussions of metaphor, but at least so far as direct influences go, this hypothesis cannot be sustained. Aristotle gave his standard definition of metaphor in Poetics 1457b7-18, writing: Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy. . . . That from analogy is possible whenever there are four terms so


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related that the second is to the first, as the fourth is to the third; for one may then put the fourth in place of the second, and the second in place of the fourth.1

We should note that two of these types of metaphor, from genus to species and from species to genus were later classified by Quintilian as types of synecdoche.2 In accordance with his extensional definition, synecdoche differs from metaphor because in synecdoche one moves between more and less in things of the same nature, whereas in metaphor reference is made to a different type of thing.3 William of Moerbeke translated the Poetics in 1278. However, only two manuscripts survive, and for all practical purposes the translation remained unknown. On the other hand, in 1256 Hermannus Alemannus translated the middle commentary of Averroes on the Poetics.4 This translation was reasonably well known, and it gave rise to at least one commentary by Bartholomew of Bruges, a short quaestio, and some glosses.5 In some places (e.g. 59-60) Hermannus does use the words “metaphora”, “metaphorica” and “metaphorice”, but when he refers to the standard Latin examples of metaphor and amphiboly, “pratum ridet” and “litus aratur”, he speaks rather of “translatio” and “transumptio” (42). The latter is associated with proportionality. The work gives no very clear idea of the definition of metaphor, and the four types of metaphor are included, without emphasis, in a discussion of various ways in which words may be used, including transumption or transmutation to an extraneous use (67). The example of analogy (without any use of that word) is presented as a change of proportions, as when old age is called the evening of life and evening is called the old age of the day on the grounds that the relation (proportio) of old age to life is much like (quasi) the relation of evening to the day. Aristotle’s Rhetoric was better known. There were at least two translations dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, followed by that of William of Moerbeke, finished around 1269 and transmitted by a large number of manuscripts. In this work, Aristotle associates metaphor and simile, writing 1)

Quotations are taken from Aristotle (1984). However, I have modified them where necessary to conform with the medieval Latin translations. 2) Quintilian (1970), 8.6.19, 465-466. For discussion, see Meyer (1993), 9. 3) See Grondeux (2002), 121. 4) See AL XXXIII. 5) See Dahan (1980).

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(1406b20-24): “The simile also is a metaphor; the difference is but slight. When the poet says: He leapt on the foe as a lion,

this is a simile; when he says of him ‘the lion leapt’, it is a metaphor—here, since both are courageous, he has transferred to Achilles the name of ‘lion’.” Aristotle also writes (1411a1-3): “Of the four kinds of metaphor the most taking is the proportional kind. Thus Pericles, for instance, said that the vanishing from their country of the young men who had fallen in the war was ‘as if the spring were taken out of the year’.” However, in this passage he does not explain what the other three kinds of metaphor are. At least four commentaries on Aristotle’s Rhetoric still exist, though both surviving manuscripts of John Buridan’s Quaestiones lack the material on metaphor.6 I shall focus on the popular commentary by Giles of Rome, written between 1271 and 1274. Giles follows Aristotle’s text very closely, though not always with understanding, apparently owing to errors in his copy of Moerbeke’s translation. For instance, when Aristotle (1411a13-14) speaks of Sestos as “the treasure trove of the Peiraeus”,7 Giles translates “the man called Sextus was a robber of the pyre, that is, of fire”8 which means, Giles tells us, that he was very audacious. According to Giles (f. 103 rb), the four kinds of metaphor to which Aristotle refers are the following: asteyum, also called asteycum (e.g. f. 105 rb), proverbium, transumptio, and assumptio or assimilatio. Transumptio is the simplest kind of metaphor, as when we say of Achilles that he is a lion or of the young men that they are spring-like.The other types all add something to the basic metaphor (f. 105 rb-va). Asteyum is the result of a problem with Moerbeke’s text. Moerbeke had left the word “asteios”, which roughly means lively or witty, in Greek. Giles took asteyum to be a kind of metaphor to which is added a teaching function, and he called it disciplinativa. It also has a link with analogy, because the strongest kind adds the teaching function to a metaphor involving analogy (f. 104 va). Proverbium has to do with proverbs, and Giles explains that this is the kind of metaphor to which is added the element of a common usage. Assimilatio, the word that William of Moerbeke had used to translate simile, is the kind of metaphor to which is added a certain analogy 6)

Fredborg (1976a), 47. AL XXXI,1-2, 299: 27-8, ‘Sestum autem predam Pireei.’ 8) Giles of Rome (1968), f. 103 va, ‘Sextus, id est quod ille homo, erat praedo pyretri, id est, ignis.’ 7)


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(analogiam quandam), for example when one says that the young men are to the city as the spring-time is to the year. We should note, however, that in this case it is the explicit analogy in the Greek sense that is a type of metaphor, whereas for other logicians an underlying analogy was what explained the metaphor actually used. Thus Thomas de Wyk and Walter Burley both claim that we say “foot” of a bridge because the bottom of the bridge supports the bridge in the way that a man is supported by his foot.9 Apart from the Rhetoric and Poetics, Aristotle speaks of metaphor in the Posterior Analytics, in a passage (97b29-39) where he warns against the use of metaphors and metaphorical expressions in definitions. In the same place he makes a passing reference to the word “sharp” (acutum), which he had described as a metaphor in De anima 420a29, and, in Topics I.15 (107a14-18), as equivocal when said of a vocal sound (vox), an angle and a knife. In commentaries on the Posterior Analytics, notably those by Giles of Rome and Paul of Venice, these remarks led to some discussion of the way in which “acutum” could be both equivocal and a metaphor. Giles of Rome explains that many cases of equivocity are caused by those metaphors which involve transumptio.10 Because a sharp object penetrates magnitudes rapidly, the term is transferred to those tastes that penetrate the taste buds, and then to those vocal sounds that penetrate the hearing. He added that when Aristotle said that equivocation was worse than metaphor, he was referring to pure equivocation, not the kind that is equivalent to metaphor and transumptio, and which is based on some similitude. Paul of Venice echoes Giles’s remarks in his own commentary on the Posterior Analytics, though he does not refer to transumptio.11 Aristotle gave similar warnings against the use of metaphor in definitions in Topics 6.2 (139b33-140a2). He also remarks there (140a9-11) that all metaphors are based on some kind of similitude, and earlier, in Topics 1.17 (108a6-16) and 18 (108b24-27), he had explicitly linked similitude with what became standard examples of analogy in the Greek sense. One is principium said of a point on a line and the unit in number, and the other is sight, which is to the eye as intellect is to the soul. The latter example was also influential through its use in Nicomachean Ethics 1.6 (1096b29-30). The passages in the Topics introduce us to the next notion to be examined, translatio,

9) Thomas de Wyk, Fallaciae, in Ebbesen (1998), 142-143; Burley, Super tractatum fallaciarum in Ebbesen (2003c), 202. 10) Giles of Rome (1967a), sig. p 6 ra-rb. 11) Paul of Venice (1976), sig. x 5 vb-6 ra.

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for in Boethius’s translation of the Topics, the Greek metaphora is always rendered as translatio.

Translatio Translatio is part of the theory of tropes or figures of speech, which is Stoic in origin.12 According to Quintilian, “A trope is the change (mutatio) of a word or phrase from its proper signification to another signification, with some force (cum uirtute).”13 Donatus, the fourth century grammarian whose discussion of tropes in Book 3 of his Ars Maior became standard for medieval undergraduate instruction, wrote: “A trope is an expression translated (translata) from its proper signification to an improper similitude (ad non propriam similitudinem), either for ornament or out of necessity.”14 Donatus’s wording suggests a general sense of translatio, but for Quintilian translatio (or tralatio in the variant found in the critical edition) is the trope that corresponds to the Greek metaphora. It is “the transfer of a noun or verb from the place in which it is proper to another place where the proper word is lacking or where the word which has been transferred is better.”15 The earlier Rhetorica ad Herennium had added a reference to similitude as justifying the transfer, and had noted that the reasons for translatio included brevity, ornament, and the avoidance of obscenity.16 Quintilian listed four types of metaphor: the transference from an animate being to another animate being, from an inanimate being to another inanimate being, from an animate being to an inanimate being, and from an inanimate being to an animate being.17 This fourfold division, which is found in Donatus, and in other authors, such as Bede in his Liber de Schematibus et Tropis,18 seems to be an elaboration of Aristotle’s type of metaphor from species to species, and no mention is made of analogy in the Greek sense.

12)

For discussion and further references, see Meyer (1993), 10 and Holtz (1981), 200. Quintilian (1970), 8.6.1, 462: 11-12. 14) Donatus, Ars Maior III.6 in Holtz (1981), 667: 2-3. 15) Quintilian (1970), 8.6.5, 463: 3-5. Later Quintilian (1970), 8.6.34-5, 469 says that catachresis or abusio gives a name to things that have no name, and that it differs from metaphor because in metaphor there was a different word (abusio est ubi nomen defuit, tralatio ubi aliud fuit). 16) Anonymous (1964) IV (V) 45, 157: 27-158: 1; V (V) 34, 158: 5-16. 17) Quintilian (1970), 8.6.9-10, 463-464. 18) Donatus III, 6, in Holtz (1981), 667: 6-7; Bede (1863), 611: 24-26. 13)


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Translatio was linked with equivocation in the Categories commentary of Boethius. He follows Greek commentators, notably Porphyry, in making a prior distinction between chance equivocals which, according to later logicians, must involve two separate impositions of the one word, and deliberate equivocals, where the different senses are linked in some way. There are four kinds of deliberate equivocation. Similitude, in the sense of a similarity of external form, exemplified by a true man and a painted man; analogy in the Greek sense, exemplified by principium said of unity with respect to number and point with respect to a line; “of one origin”, exemplified by medicinale; and “in relation to one end”, exemplified by salutaris or, for later authors, sanum, said of animals, their diet, and urine.19 From the 1240s onward, the last two subdivisions were classified as analogy in the new sense of being said of two things in a prior and a posterior way (secundum prius et posterius), and often an extra subdivision, relation to one subject, was added to accommodate the example of ens.20 Boethius then goes on to say that there seems to be another mode of equivocation that Aristotle is silent about, namely translatio.21 He cites the example of “pes”, said of a ship and of a mountain. He states that translatio has no property of its own (translatio nullius proprietatis est), by which he means that it is not a particular class of word. It may or may not fall under equivocation. If, for reasons of ornament, one calls a steersman a charioteer, the word “charioteer” is not equivocal, for the man is already properly named steersman. However, if the object has no name of its own, as in the case of the picture of a man, one can transfer the word “homo” from the living man to his picture, and so the word “homo” is equivocal. Note that we are encountering homo pictus for the second time, for he was also the standard example of similitudo, the first subdivision of deliberate equivocation. The distinction between two types of translatio, found in Boethius and in the rhetoricians,22 as well as in Petrus Helias,23 seems to cause a problem, given that metaphor seems to involve an ephemeral, ad hoc use of words, related to a particular language and to particular circumstances. Some commentators on the Sophistical Refutations explained that it was because of this specificity that

19)

Boethius (PL 64, 166 B-C). Cf. Simplicius (1971), 42: 62-43: 87. See Ashworth (1992, 123). For secundum prius et posterius in Arabic sources, see Wolfson (1973). 21) Boethius (PL 64, 166 D-167 A). Anonymus Parisensis, in Ebbesen and Iwakuma (1990), 74 reports fully on Boethius’s discussion. Cf. Fallacie Parvipontane in De Rijk (1962-1967), I, 554-555. 22) Cf. Quintilian (1970), 8.6.6-8, 463 on necessity and ornament. 23) Petrus Helias (1993), 216: 80-81. 20)

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Aristotle, when he listed the three modes common to equivocation and amphiboly, gave no example of the second mode which they identified with metaphor.24 This characterization of metaphor fits well with the idea of using another word for something that already has its own name, such as “laughing” instead of “flowering”, for the sake of ornamentation. It does not fit so well with the idea of using a word with an established sense to name something that has no name of its own, for that seems to imply a certain permanence. Of the logicians I have read, only Peter of Spain notes that metaphors can become fixed in the language, and thereby turn into straightforward equivocal terms.25 We should note that in medieval practice fixed metaphors include those primarily introduced for the sake of ornamentation, such as the laughing meadows which provided a stock example from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and that these meadows became not just a stock example of metaphor but of equivocation.26 Another classical source that brought metaphor, under that name, together with equivocation is Simplicius’s commentary on the Categories, translated by William of Moerbeke in 1266. Simplicius remarked (43) that there was a possible link beween one of the subdivisions of deliberate equivocation, analogy in the Greek sense, and metaphor, when he wrote “Others, among whom is Atticus, bring together the mode according to metaphor (secundam metaphoram) and the mode according to analogy (secundum analogiam) and affirm that their reunion constitutes one single mode of equivocation.” He went on to quote and elaborate on Porphyry’s point that when a word is transferred to something that has a name, there is metaphor and no equivocation, but when it is transferred to something that has no name, it is not a case of metaphor at all, but is straightforward equivocation. The example cited is that of “foot”, said on the one hand of the lower part of a mountain in place of the Greek word “hyporia” and on the other hand of a table or bed, because of the similitude to the foot of an animal. Here there are two rationes and one common name. Simplicius added (43-4) that the first case will count as equivocation if similitude is involved.

24)

Giles of Rome (1967b), f. 11 va-vb; Anonymus Monacensis, Commentarium in Sophisticos Elenchos, in Ebbesen (1997), 145; Nicholas of Paris, Notulae super librum Elenchorum, in Ebbesen (1997), 174. 25) Peter of Spain (1972), 113: 12-26. 26) For Abelard in Glosae super Praedicamenta, ‘prata rident’ was not a case of equivocation: see Rosier-Catach (1997), 156-157.


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To return to the word translatio, we cannot assume that even in the late classical period it was always equivalent to metaphor as one particular figure of speech [cf. Donatus, above]. In De Doctrina Christiana (II, 10, 15) Augustine divides signs into two groups, propria and translata. Proper signs are those used to signify those things they were instituted to signify (propter quas sunt instituta) and transferred signs seem to be those used in accordance with any figure of speech. He gives the example of “ox” used in “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain” to stand either for an actual animal or for an evangelist. In general, he argues for the importance of knowing the tropes in order to dissolve ambiguities (III, 30, 41), and he makes specific reference to metaphor and catachresis (III, 29, 40). This generality is even clearer in Augustine’s De Dialectica (112-16) where translatio is introduced as a type of equivocation depending on the use of words (ex loquendi usu). The first case cited is that of similitude, as when a man and his statue are both called “Tullius”. The second and third cases involve parts and wholes, the fourth and fifth involve species and genus, the sixth and seventh involve cause and effect, and the eighth and ninth involve the contained and the contained. In other words, they cover synecdoche and metonymy. Another influential text was De trinitate I, 1, 2, where Augustine remarks that those things that are said proprie of God and are not found in creatures, are rarely affirmed in Scripture, and cites Exodus 3.14 as an exception. This remark was one of the inspirations for a prominent movement in twelfth century theology which held that all words, with the possible exception of “Qui est”, are said translative of God. In my view, it is clear that Gilbert of Poitiers and Alan of Lille, to mention just two names, were using translatio in a much wider sense than mere metaphor.27 Similar extensions are found in the logicians, and Irène Rosier-Catach (1999a) has recently studied the wide use of translatio in Peter Abelard’s logical writings.

Transumptio A word with a similarly wide use, and that often replaced translatio, was transumptio (or transsumptio). For Quintilian, transumptio was metalepsis, which occurs when there is a double transference, that is to say, when the word in question replaces another word, which in turn replaces another word and so

27)

See Ashworth (forthcoming), Valente (in press), Rosier (1995a), 135-168, Rosier-Catach (1997).

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on. For instance, we might replace the word cano (I sing), by canto (I chant), and then replace canto by dico (I say) in order to say that I say instead of saying that I sing.28 There are elaborate discussions of transumptio in later medieval writings on the poetic arts,29 but for most logicians the word transumptio was merely a synonym of the word translatio, and enjoyed the same ambiguities. For instance, in the thirteenth century we find Roger Bacon, who was strongly influenced by Augustine’s De dialectica, using the words transsumptio and transsumere in his De signis to cover a variety of cases of equivocation and analogy.30 In his Compendium Studii Theologiae (116) he notes that figurative language, as in Pratum ridet, constitutes an improper mode of equivocation, so it is unlikely that he meant transumptio to be equivalent to metaphor. We find the wider sense in various logical sources, at least three of which bring together Boethius’s four types of deliberate equivocation with the notion of transumptio. Anonymus Aurelianensis, writing perhaps between 1160 and 1180,31 said that the second type of equivocation was when a name signified one thing principally, but was transferred to signify another thing either from proportion or from similitude or from some other cause, and he gave the examples of homo pictus and the laughing meadows.32 There is a clear hint of Boethius’s four types of deliberate equivocation here, as there is in the thirteenth century Categories commentary of Robert Kilwardby.33 It should also be noted that Anonymus Aurelianensis remarks that the first case of equivocation, Boethius’s chance equivocation, involves diverse institutions, which suggests that the other types he lists do not. In the late thirteenth century, Burley explicitly identifies types of transumptio with Boethius’s types of deliberate equivocation, and he insists that there is just one act of imposition involved.34 In discussions of supposition theory, the word transumptio also has a wider sense. For instance, Walter Burley explains that supposition is improper when a term supposits because of transumptio or the use of words (ex transsumptione vel ex usu loquendi), and Vincent Ferrer mentions this view. They both go on to cite antonomasis, synecdoche, and metonomy as producing improper

28) 29) 30) 31) 32) 33) 34)

Quintilian (1970), 8.6.37-39, 470. See Purcell (1987). Fredborg, Nielsen and Pinborg (1978), e.g. 109-115, 128-130. Ebbesen (1979), xxviii. Anonymus Aurelianensis, Commentarium in Sophisticos Elenchos, in Ebbesen (1979), 86. Kilwardby, in Lewry (1978), 374. Burley, Quaestiones super Sophisticos Elenchos, in Ebbesen (2005c), 281.


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supposition.35 We find similar material in the Logica “Cum sit nostra”, Roger Bacon, William Ockham and John Buridan,36 but there was little sustained discussion of improper supposition. In logic texts, transumptio also appears in the sections devoted to the Topics. In his De topicis differentiis Boethius, following a lost work of Themistius, describes the topic ex transsumptione as the use of a thing which is better known (such as justice in the republic) in place of something less well known (such as justice in general), or of a more common word (such as “wise”) in place of a word that is obscure or difficult (such as “philosopher”).37 Boethius was followed by William of Sherwood,38 but some writers of logic texts, including Peter of Spain, Lambert of Lagny (often called of Auxerre) and John Buridan, replace the first case by the case of a word or phrase which is transferred on account of a similitude, and here we find the standard examples of “pratum ridet” and “litus aratur”.39 John Buridan also added the cases of words such as “lion” and “pig” predicated of human beings. In this context it is clear that these logicians thought of transumptio in terms of metaphor.

Commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations The fullest discussions of metaphor, most usually under the name transumptio, occur in textbook treatments of fallacies and in commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations. In that work Aristotle first lists six types of fallacy which depend on language, beginning with equivocation and amphiboly (165b24-166a6). He then gives four examples of equivocation which were regarded as falling into three groups. Following Boethius’s translation in AL VI 1-3 the first is exemplified by the word “discere”, the second by the word “expediens”, and the third by the words “sedens” and “laborans”. After some remarks about amphiboly (166a7-15), Aristotle then writes (166a15-20): “There are three modes of equivocation and amphiboly: one when either the phrase or the name primarily signifies more than one thing, e.g. ‘piscis’ and ‘canis’; another when we are accustomed to speak in that way; a third when words put 35)

Walter Burley (1955), 2: 20-21. The full discussion is found 46-47. Vincent Ferrer (1977), 176-180. 36) Logica ‘Cum sit nostra’, in De Rijk (1962-1967), II.2, 447: 33-448: 8. Roger Bacon in De Libera (1986), 287-289; Ockham (1974), 236-237; John Buridan (1998), 37-38. 37) Boethius (1978), 56-57. 38) William of Sherwood (1995), 124: 563-567. 39) Peter of Spain (1972), 74-75; Lambert (1971), 136; John Buridan (2001), 479-480.

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together signify more than one thing, but taken alone <signify> simply, e.g. ‘scit saeculum’.” The first issue here is how to coordinate the two lists, given that each had three members. In the literal commentaries of Albert the Great and Giles of Rome the two are separated. In similar language, they report that the second mode of equivocation is when a word signifies one thing prius (or principaliter) and another thing ex consequenti, whereas the second mode common to equivocation and amphiboly signifies one thing proprie and another thing per similitudinem translationis or improprie for Albert and one thing principaliter by virtue of imposition and another thing transumptive for Giles.40 Giles added that the second mode of equivocation was found among analogical terms (in analogis). Later Ockham discusses the two lists separately, but treats the second mode in much the same way.41 Question commentaries and logic textbooks tend not to make any distinction, and focus on Aristotle’s list of common modes when they are discussing equivocation. Peter of Spain (99: 22-26) remarked that one could take equivocation by itself or in relation to amphiboly, but that there were just three modes in either case. Some early sources questioned in what way the so-called common modes were in fact common, and suggested that, whereas the first mode was genuinely common, the second mode related to equivocation alone and the third to amphiboly alone, but this was never a popular view.42 On the other hand, it did raise the issue of how the three modes were to be related to Aristotle’s discussion in Categories 1a1-5, where, according to Boethius and other sources, there are just two main types of equivocal terms, chance equivocals and deliberate equivocals. The standard answer was that the first two modes dealt with signification, the subject of the Categories, and were equivalent to chance equivocation and deliberate equivocation, whereas the third mode dealt with modi significandi, consignification, or perhaps supposition (depending on the source).43 Thus, as Albert the Great explained, 40)

Albert the Great (1890), 538b, 544a; Giles of Rome (1967b), f. 10 rb, f. 12 ra. Cf. Nicholas of Paris in Ebbesen (1997), 170, dubium 2, and reply, 172-173. 41) Ockham (1979), 16-17 (proprie vs. improprie), 20 (principaliter vs. ex translatione). 42) See Glose in Aristotilis Sophisticos Elenchos in De Rijk (1962-1967), I, 207 and Anonymus Aurelianensis in Ebbesen (1979), 106-107. Anonymus Parisiensis in Ebbesen and Iwakuma (1990, 79), says that the first two modes are common and the third is proper to amphiboly. 43) Albert the Great (1890), 538a (modi significandi); Giles of Rome (1967b), f. 10 rb (modi significandi); Incerti Auctores (1977) Anonymus SF, 116-7 and Anonymus C, 309 (modi significandi); Peter of Spain (1972), 103 (consignification); Nicholas of Paris in Ebbesen (1997), 173, ad 5 (consignification); Ockham (1979), 24 (supposition) and Ockham (1974), 759-760 (supposition).


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equivocation is treated more widely in the Sophistical Refutations, which has to treat of all the ways in which fallacy can arise, than in the Categories.44 The tendency to identify the two lists of modes raises the important question of how the second mode of equivocation relates to transumptio, the second mode common to equivocation and amphiboly. The issue was complicated by the introduction of analogy in the new sense whereby, because of attribution, a term signifies one thing per prius and another per posterius or ex consequenti. A number of sources pay little or no attention to this issue. Some, particularly the authors of Question commentaries, refer only to analogy;45 others refer, at least in effect, only to transumptio.46 At least two English sources belonging to the latter tradition refer in passing to analogical terms,47 and in his Summulae Roger Bacon included ens, which was a standard analogical term, among his examples of transumptio.48 At least two other English sources solve the problem by placing analogy in the third mode. Thus William of Sherwood (172) takes both “ridet” and “expedit” as examples of the second mode in which words signify one thing principaliter and are transferred (transumuntur) to another because of some similitude. The third mode (174), illustrated by “laborans”, involves those dictiones whose “signification or consignification is one intentio participated by many secundum prius et posterius.” A similar solution is found in Simon of Faversham.49 Other sources refer to both analogy and transumptio without making any choice between them.50 44)

Albert the Great (1890), 538b-539a. See also Robert in Ebbesen (1997), 161. See Anonymus Pragensis in Murè (1998), 89-91; Anonymus, Tres quaestiones de aequivocatione, in Ebbesen (1998), 134; Anonymus G&C 611-II, Quaestiones in Sophisticos Elenchos in Ebbesen (1998), 168-169, 176-177. Robertus Anglicus, Commentarium in Aristotelis Sophisticos Elenchos in Ebbesen (1997), 195 rejects the view. 46) See various sources in De Rijk (1962-1967), I, 208 (proprie/improprie), 290 ( principaliter/ex translatione), 499 (principaliter/translative et inproprie); , Commentarium in Sophisticos Elenchos in Ebbesen (1997), 152 (principaliter/transumptive); Anonymus e Musaeo in Ebbesen (1997), 165 (simpliciter/ex transumptione); Fallaciae ad modum Oxoniae in Kopp (1985), 41-44. 47) Fallaciae breves in Kopp (1982), 264; Ockham (1979), 23: 27-30. 48) Roger Bacon in De Libera (1987), 242, §§448-449. 49) Simon of Faversham (1984), 85-86, 127-128. Curiously, on p. 80 he relates the per prius/per posterius case to the second mode of equivocation, and refers to analogical terms. 50) See e.g. Dubia de aequivocatione in Ebbesen (1998), 127-128. For a more elaborate classification, see Summe Metenses in De Rijk (1962-1967), II.1, 475-476 and Dialectica Monacensis in De Rijk (1962-1967), II.2, 559: 20-28. The latter source is important because it emphasizes that transumptio covers all kinds of trope: 561: 25-36. Cf. Ockham (1974), 758-759 for a long list of types of translatio of which one type is metaphor (or transumptio: cf. 757: 39 ‘metaphorice et transumptive’). 45)

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The Reduction of Analogy to transumptio, or the Reverse More important for our purposes are those sources that refer to both analogy and transumptio and explicitly reduce one to the other. One school, exemplified by Peter of Spain and Lambert of Lagny, focussed on analogy, or at least on terms that are said per prius et posterius, and reduced transumptio to analogy. Peter remarked that one can view ridere as being said in a prior way of men and a posterior way of fields.51 In his Syncategoreumata he listed the ways in which a word can signify different things, but kept secundum prius et posterius and transumptive separate.52 Unlike Peter of Spain, Lambert explicitly mentioned analogical terms, which he assigned to the second mode of equivocation.53 The other school focussed on transumptio and saw analogy as secondary. The De fallaciis wrongly attributed to Aquinas follows this school, and claims that the multiplicity of analogical names which are said in a prior and a posterior way is reduced to the case in which a term signifies one thing principally and another thing methaphorice siue transsumptiue.54 Few sources examine the relation between transumptio and analogy in more depth. However, a certain Robertus and another Robertus, Robertus de Aucumpno, both explain that even though analogy reduces to transumptio, there is a difference because in one case there is a true unity of nature and in the other case there is only a resemblance, that is, a surface similarity.55 A better explanation is found in the theologian James of Viterbo (d. 1308). He argued that there is a crucial difference between analogy and metaphor. Where there is attribution of one thing to another, there is a causal relationship of

51) Peter of Spain (1972), 100: 18-20 ‘Secunda species sive secundus modus equivocationis est quando eadem dictio secundum prius et posterius significat diversa. . . .’; 101: 11-12 ‘Ad hanc secundam speciem reducitur equivocatio ex transsumptione’; 101: 20-23 ‘hec verba “currit” et “ridet” per prius significant ridere vel currere et per posterius florere vel labi, quia hec significant ex propria impositione, illa vero ex assuetudine.’ 52) Peter of Spain (1992), 46. 53) Lambert (1971), 149 for analogy; 150 for the claim that fallacies arising from transumption are reduced to the second mode. 54) Aquinas (1976), 406: 38-42, 53-55. 55) Robertus in Ebbesen (1997), 176: ‘Intellige etiam quod in analogo unum prius significatur et alterum ex consequenti; et iste modus reducitur ad modum aequivocationis ex transumptione, et ita non est differentia nisi [et] quod in analogo est unitas vere in significatis, in transumptione non est vere sed solum similitudo.’ Robertus de Aucumpno in Ebbesen (1997), 187-188: ‘quia in analogo unum primo significatur et alterum ex consequenti, reducitur ad modum aequivocationis ex transumptione, et differt solum quia in analogo est unitas naturae maior in significatis, in transumptione vero non unitas naturae sed similitudo.’


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some sort, to one agent, or one end or one subject, but in translatio there is only a relation of similitude.56 This ontological issue, while not discussed at any length by logicians, clearly lies behind some of the discussion about the number of acts of imposition involved in deliberate equivocation. A causal relation can be taken to justify a single act of imposition that covers two related senses, though as we shall see it can equally be taken to justify the rejection of such a single act.

Acts of Imposition Ockham argued that just as chance equivocation involved two or more distinct and unrelated acts of imposition, so deliberate equivocation of any sort required two acts of imposition, so related that the second would not have taken place had not the first already occurred.57 More usually, logicians insisted that deliberate equivocation required just one act of imposition, and this allowed a principled distinction to be drawn between analogy and transumptio. For instance, Radulphus Brito writes in his Questions on the Sophistici Elenchi that there are two sorts of analogy, the first when a term is imposed to signify several things, one per prius and the other per posterius or ex consequenti, and the second when a term is imposed to signify just one thing and is then taken improperly (sumitur improprie) for another thing on the basis of some similitude or other.58 He uses homo pictus as an example, and says that this is an improper kind of analogy. The claim that transumptio is a subdivision of analogical terms, and perhaps the only one that causes the fallacy of equivocation, is found in later authors, notably in the fifteenth century logician and theologian Dominic of Flanders (d. 1479), who enriches his discussion by an insistence on the role of concepts. The term ridere comes to signify the concept flowering only by transference, but a properly analogical term signifies either a concept containing some ordering or an ordered group of concepts by virtue of its initial imposition.59 Transumptio as a subdivision of analogy reappears in Gerard de Harderwyck (d. 1503). In his commentary on the Categories he identifies deliberate equivocation with analogy, and credits Albert the Great with the division of analogy 56)

James of Viterbo (1983), 210. Ockham (1974), 45. On two impositions, cf. Bacon (1988), 102; Bacon in Fredborg, Nielsen and Pinborg (1978), 124. 58) Radulphus Brito in Ebbesen (1998), 217. 59) Dominic of Flanders (1967), sig. i 3 vb. 57)

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into three: secundum proportionem ad unum (e.g. sanum), secundum similitudinem (e.g. homo pictus), and secundum transsumptionem, (e.g. cursus said of a man and of water).60 Yet another approach is found in Cardinal Cajetan’s treatise De analogia nominum which was a supplement to his commentary on the Categories. Cajetan echoes the early fifteenth century English Dominican Thomas Claxton in distinguishing the analogy of attribution from the analogy of proportionality, but where Claxton gave two undifferentiated examples of the latter, visus and ridere,61 Cajetan writes that the analogy of proportionality, which is analogy in the Greek sense, has two modes, metaphorice et proprie, and ridere when said of a field or of fortune is his example of metaphor.62 Cajetan thus restores the strong relationship between analogy in the Greek sense, and metaphor. All these authors accepted the existence of analogical terms, and those who discussed imposition held that the single imposition of a term to signify per prius et posterius was possible. For authors who rejected the possibility of such a complicated initial imposition, but retained the view that only one act of imposition was involved, appeal was made to transference from the proper imposed signification, and analogical terms were either identified with metaphors, or were excluded from the second mode altogether. The British school is prominent here. In his Questions on the Sophistici Elenchi, Duns Scotus argued that whatever relations of attribution hold in reality, it was impossible to impose a single term to signify one thing per prius and another thing per posterius, or to establish such a relationship between two distinct impositions of a single term (336-7). Hence he argued that sanum was reducible to univocation, and that ens was reducible to the first mode of equivocation (344). The second mode of equivocation did not include analogical terms but was confined to translatio et transumptio a propria significatione ad impropriam, per aliquam similitudinem, with ridere as the example (338-9). Four of his English contemporaries, Thomas de Wyk, Walter Burley, Peter Bradlay, and the anonymous author of Quaestiones, retained the notion of analogy as applying to the second mode of equivocation but made a clear distinction between the analogy of being and the analogy of terms.63 There is an analogical relationship 60)

Gerard de Harderwyck (1486), sig. a iii vb-sig. a iiii ra. Thomas Claxton (1943), 138-139. 62) Cajetan in Pinchard (1987), 120 §25. 63) Thomas de Wyk in Ebbesen (1998), 142; Burley, Super tractatum fallaciarum in Ebbesen (2003c), 202; Peter Bradlay in Synan (1967), 282; Anonymus G&C 668, Quaestiones in Sophisticos Elenchos in Ebbesen (1998), 289-290. The latter source allows that the word ‘ens’ is analogical, but only in a sense compatible with its being a univocal term. 61)


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between the kind of being that is a substance and the kind of being that is an accident, but, said Thomas de Wyk, this does not concern the act of signifying. The only analogical terms are those such as ridere which signify one thing by imposition and another by transference. Burley added that this is the only way in which a term can signify one thing per prius and another thing per posterius (p. 201). Both Thomas de Wyk and Burley went on to explain that the presence of just one act of imposition was crucial.64 Imposition must be totally ad placitum, but when there is transference, there is always a reason, namely a likeness of relations, and so calling the lower part of a bridge its foot cannot involve a second act of imposition.

Conclusion Medieval logicians do not offer any sustained account of metaphor and how it functions. Nonetheless, there is enough material to answer my initial questions. First, while “transumptio” and “translatio” are quite often synonymous with “metaphora”, one cannot take this as a general rule. Second, metaphor, whether for the sake of ornamentation or out of necessity, was generally subsumed under deliberate equivocation. As a result, it was often identified with analogy in the new non-Greek sense by logicians. This was obviously seen to be compatible with the view that analogy in the Greek sense of a comparison of relations was the basis for most metaphors. However, when “homo pictus” was taken as an example of analogy and transumptio, the similarity involved was one of external form rather than of relations. The most important controversies about the status of metaphor in relation to analogy were linked to the issue of acts of imposition, and the question whether a single term could by a single act of imposition come to signify secundum prius et posterius. Finally, there are three features that serve to distinguish terms used metaphorically from genuine analogical terms. Metaphors are not based on causal relations among the objects signified; the metaphorical sense is not acquired by an act of imposition; and when a word is used metaphorically it signifies something other than what is properly signified by that word. When speaking of meadows, we say “laughing” and signify flowering.

64)

Thomas de Wyk in Ebbesen (1998), 142-143; Burley in Ebbesen (2003c), 202.


www.brill.nl/viv

Scepticism, Demonstration and the Infinite Regress Argument (Nicholas of Autrecourt and John Buridan)* Christophe Grellard University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the medieval posterity of the Aristotelian and Pyrrhonian treatments of the infinite regress argument. We show that there are some possible Pyrrhonian elements in Autrecourt’s epistemology when he argues that the truth of our principles is merely hypothetical. By contrast, Buridan’s criticisms of Autrecourt rely heavily on Aristotelian material. Both exemplify a use of scepticism. Keywords scepticism, truth, evidentness, principles, infinite regress

The medieval reception of scepticism presents a most interesting example of how a current or—to use the medieval term—a sect in ancient philosophy was reconstructed. In some ways, the approach to sceptical questions in the Middle Ages is a non-historical one, since it is hard to find what the ancient philosophers called scepticism in this period. There were no sceptics in the Middle Ages, in the sense of someone’s professing scepticism (except for John of Salisbury). There was, however, a sceptical problem, understood as a challenge to the theory of knowledge. This scepticism is a construction that is not based on any historical foundation, and for this reason it should be considered, above all, a breeding-ground of arguments (some of which are ancient in origin, others genuinely medieval), a collection of challenges for the theory of knowledge. The main reason why medieval scepticism lacks a history and is reduced to being a breeding-ground of arguments lies in the way ancient traditions of *) Article translated by John Marenbon. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217803

C. Grellard / Vivarium 45 (2007) 328-342

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scepticism were received in the Middle Ages. Without taking the traditions of texts into account—establishing which texts were known and, most important, which were read, it is impossible to understand how a set of medieval problems in a given area develops. With regard to scepticism, we need to explain why this philosophical attitude was reduced to an extreme epistemological thesis: ‘nothing can be known’. In this study, I link the problem of the sceptical tradition in the Middle Ages to the question of a sceptical tradition in logic. In many ways, joining together scepticism and logic may appear paradoxical, since in antiquity sceptical discussion had among its aims to lay bare the dogmatic approach taken in logic. None the less, it cannot be denied that in their project of suspending assent the sceptics made use of logical techniques which may well have been invented by others. To take account of sceptical arguments, Sextus Empiricus uses an image that will reappear later in Wittgenstein—that of a ladder that we push away once we have reached the top. There is, then, without doubt a sceptical dimension to logic. In particular, sceptical interest in logic is linked to the problem of the hierarchical organization of principles and the problem of justification. My aim here is to consider the case of a sceptical argument—that about an infinite regress of justifications (‘Prove your proof ’)—in order to unravel the web of texts and to see how the argument was received and understood by medieval thinkers. In particular, this argument enables us to reflect on the status of the principles of knowledge. I shall look especially at Nicholas of Autrecourt’s use of the infinite regress argument and will try to bring to light some Pyrrhonian elements in his philosophy.

Ancient Traditions and Their Transmission to the Middle Ages The transmission of the ancient sceptical tradition to the Middle Ages needs delicate treatment, since medieval scholars seem to have known the main texts of the tradition—Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Cicero’s Contra Academicos1—badly or slightly. Although there were many manuscripts of the Contra Academicos in circulation, citations of it are very rare. John of Salisbury (1125-1180), who vaunts his academic scepticism, seems to have known only the Tusculanae; and Henry of Ghent, although one of the few medieval writers to know the Contra Academicos directly, contends that Cicero’s aim was 1)

On this tradition, see Schmitt (1983) and Porro (1994).

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to refute the Academics.2 In the majority of cases, therefore, Cicero’s text, and the Academics’ positions more generally, were known in the Middle Ages through the prism of Augustine. There is no need to stress the importance of Augustine for philosophical reflection in the Middle Ages, and all his work illustrates the importance of the sceptical problem for philosophy. As he recalls in his Confessions, he had a personal experience of sceptical temptation, in the form of anxiety about our ability to reach what is true, and it is this experience which makes it an urgent necessity to refute scepticism. And yet Augustine goes about doing so in such a way as to combine devising a refutation with serving a useful purpose. Scepticism must be refuted in order to set up true philosophy, but sceptical arguments can also have a propaedeutic value: they can be used to refute false philosophies, such as empirical or materialist ones. This Augustinian model sets the main lines for the medieval conception of scepticism, but it is enriched by other, different traditions that are superimposed on it. The first enrichment comes from the rediscovery from the twelfth century onwards, through Aristotle as intermediary, of pre-Socratic traditions.3 Two collections of texts are important. One the one hand, there is Book IV of the Metaphysics. The analysis of theses from Heraclitus, Protagoras and Democritus leads to the examinations of a large number of arguments that can be considered sceptical. Most often, reading these texts allowed an ontological foundation to be given to sceptical doctrines. For medieval readers, it is because they judge, like Heraclitus, that all things are movable or because, like Protagoras, they deny the Principle of Contradiction, that the Academicians hold that nothing can be known. On the other hand, the second group of texts is made up of the collection formed by the beginning of the Posterior Analytics and Book II of the Metaphysics. These texts lead their readers to pose the question of what needs to be demonstrated and, more generally, to be justified. It is in this context that medieval thinkers, in quaestio-commentaries, would once again examine the sceptical problem: can we know anything? (Prior Analytics I) Can we grasp the truth? (Metaphysics II). For medieval thinkers, Posterior Analytics I, Chapter 3, is an important element in their reconstruction of scepticism, because here Aristotle explicitly attributes the infinite regress argument to those who think that there is no possibility of scientific knowledge (‘Certain people hold that there . . . does not seem to be any scientific knowledge because we have to know the first princi-

2) 3)

See Schmitt (1972), 3-42. On the trace of ‘sceptical’ questions in Aristotle, see Long (1981).


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ples’).4 The infinite regress is directed against precisely those who judge that there is no scientific knowledge apart from demonstration. As a result, this argument sketches the portrait of a sceptic who demands a justification for everything. But, at the same time, this argument is directly against the Aristotelian definition of the syllogism as a demonstration that produces knowledge (chapter 2; 71b17: we know things through demonstration). In Posterior Analytics I, 1-2 Aristotle requires that the premisses from which the conclusion is deduced should be true (because there can be no knowledge of what is false), anterior and better known. The transfer of justification which takes place in a demonstration thus demands that the premisses have epistemic primacy. This combination of demands (to know is to demonstrate, the premisses must be better known than the conclusion) seems therefore to legitimate a sceptical type of argumentation: there will necessarily be a regress of the premisses. The impossibility of an infinite regress rests on the (psychological) fact that the human mind cannot grasp an infinite chain of demonstration. It is also worth noting that the infinite regress argument does not work on its own, but in combination with the hypothetical mode. If we stop in an arbitrary way at a principle, this principle will not be known and so will not take part in the transfer of justification (of evidence and truth) that is expected of a syllogism. Either the foundations of science are undiscoverable, or else we must admit that they are merely hypothetical: either way we have to give up an absolute definition of knowledge. Aristotle gives a two-fold reply to this sceptical argument, a logical one and an epistemological one. The logical answer is found in Book I, 19-23, and it aims to prove that the requirements of essential predication make a regression impossible whether it is based on the middle terms or the first and last (extreme) ones. The logical solution (it might be called the negative one) consists in rejecting the possibility of infinite regress by showing that the extreme terms reciprocally limit each other: given the meaning of each of the terms, there is only a finite number of predications possible. Thus Chapter 22 shows, in a first argument, that infinity is excluded both in essential and non-essential predication. If infinite regress were allowed where essential predication is concerned, it would be impossible to construct a definition. But we are in fact able to give (essential) definitions. This argument is therefore constructed as a reductio (82b37-83a1). Then Aristotle generalizes his point to cover all predications, that is to say, non-essential predication too.

4)

Aristoteles latinus (Translatio Iacobi), Analytica posteriora, I, 3, 72 b 5—72 b 25, in AL IV.

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The second argument is linked more directly to the problem raised in Chapter Three (83b35-84a5). The finite nature of the predication of middle terms is presented as a necessary condition for it to be possible to make a demonstration and so to gain scientific knowledge. Aristotle reasons here as if the problem raised by the sceptics (and which resists both on infinite regress and the hypothetical mode) had been resolved. And so Aristotle seems ultimately to presuppose that any solution to the problem of infinite regress is found on the epistemological side. This is effectively the conclusion of this group of chapters (84a29-b2). It has just been proved that a demonstration is made by placing a middle term between two extreme ones, and that this placing cannot go on and on to infinity. We know, therefore, negatively that not every proposition is demonstrable because not every proposition has a middle term. But it remains to explain, positively, how the principles can be known. How can one know truths that are indemonstrable because they lack a middle term? What logic allows us to affirm is that not every thing can be demonstrated. This is the first step in refuting the adversaries mentioned in Chapter 3, but it remains to explain how these indemonstrables can be known, if one wants to escape from the hypothetical mode. Aristotle is therefore led to defend the idea that certain truths can be established without arguments. Ultimately, then, founding a system supposes finding foundations outside the system. Thus the conclusion of Chapter 22 echoes that of Chapter 3. Aristotle’s solution is known, but it is debated because of its ambiguity. As early as Chapter 3, Aristotle introduces the idea of a ‘principle of science that makes us capable of knowing definitions.’ For a medieval reader, the sense is different, and in a certain way more precise and reductive: principium scientie esse quoddam dicimus, in quantum terminos cognoscimus. Following this translation, the principles which put a stop to infinite regress are those principles that are known from the examination of their terms—that is to say, analytic propositions. This is not, however, the essential point of the reply. This reply is found in Posterior Analytics II, 19, which seems to be a sort of appendix to the main body of the treatise. Here, after ruling out innate knowledge of principles, Aristotle seems to hesitate between, on the one hand, an empirical production of principles, through induction, which would start from sensation and rise up to the universal thanks to memory and experience; and, on the other hand, an intellectual intuition—a direct grasp of principles. In this second alternative, what is involved is the intellectual faculty of apprehension of simples, which is completely free from error (On the Soul III,6; 430a26—430b30). For medieval readers, then, there were at least four available alternative solutions to the problem of infinite regress: (1) knowledge


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through the analysis of terms; (2) knowledge through induction; (3) innate knowledge (Plato’s position, in the form in which Aristotle criticizes it and it is taken up again by theories of illumination); (4) intuitive knowledge (intellectus). There is a final tradition that should be considered, although its impact remains difficult to evaluate—that of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism. It is well known today that manuscripts of a Latin translation of this text circulated at the end of the thirteenth century or beginning of the fourteenth century. Three manuscripts survive but we know nothing about their owners. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the influence of this text in medieval epistemology, but it cannot be completely excluded.5 We know that in Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus recounts ten modes or tropes which were attributed to the ancient sceptics (Aenesidemus, in fact) and five modes to the new sceptics (Agrippa, according to Diogenes Laertius). They are procedures designed to lead to a suspension of judgement by showing the undecidable character of things in the absence of any criterion. What should be noted is that, whereas the ten tropes are based above all on relativity (of the objects of knowledge and of the subject), the five tropes of Agrippa are based, rather, on logical procedures developed throughout the course of antiquity and developed here in a systematic way. Agrippa’s aim is to show that every dogmatic thesis, i.e. every attempt to find a criterion for truth, is necessarily guilty of an error: contradiction (a disagreement between two theses, p and not-p), infinite regress, relativity, being hypothetical, circular reasoning. As Jonathan Barnes has shown, these five modes function together as a network and form what he calls a web.6 Take a thesis p. The first mode allows us to put forward that there have been other philosophers who have held ~p, especially because of the relativity of knowers and the circumstances in which they know (third mode). And so a proof q is necessary, such that q -> p, but this proof itself presupposes another proof: either this proof is of the same nature as the proof of p and we enter a vicious circle (fifth mode), or it is merely hypothetical (4th mode). Through its paradoxical alliance with scepticism, the critical force of logic becomes clearly apparent, and this was something medieval thinkers knew very well.

5)

Recent work on the availability of Sextus Empiricus in the Middle Ages includes Cavini (1977), Mutschmann (1891) and Wittwer (2002). 6) Barnes (1990), 113-149.

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Looking more particularly at the second mode, its way of functioning is easy to grasp. As Sextus Empiricus stresses, it comes into play when it is necessary to ‘bring about conviction (pistis, fides)’ (I, 164-6), that is to say, to justify the truth of a thesis. The repercussions of this need for justification bring about the constitution of an infinite chain of justifications. But such a chain is impossible, and it must be admitted that the initial thesis is unjustifiable. Suspension of assent should follow. But one can ask why it is impossible to admit an infinite chain of justifications. Sextus’s reply is very clear and revealing. We would have no point of departure, no principle or foundation (‘having nothing from which we can begin to set up’: non habentibus nobis unde incipiamus constructionem, where constructio translates archometha). In speaking of ‘construction’ the Latin is more explicit: what are envisaged are foundationalist theories of knowledge, which demand that, in order to be justified, all knowledge must have a foundation, that is to say, must draw its evidence or its truth, by transfer, from a basic belief or a belief which has a special status—the foundations that sustain the whole structure. What Sextus stresses is that, from the logical point of view, there is no basis for supposing that there are any beliefs of this sort. Two observations are necessary. First, Sextus’s argument seems to a great extent to rely on confusing the logical and psychological levels. Sextus thinks of demonstrations as psychological events that occupy a finite period of time. It is this genetic way of seeing it that rules out infinite regress (II, 85). The temporal nature of proof is such that it leads at one time or another to a vicious circle or to an arbitrary foundation. Second, however, it is undeniable that Sextus poses clearly the problem of the status of principles in a demonstration. How can it be legitimate that the logical point of departure for a demonstration is outside the criteria of truth demanded for a demonstration? What were the medieval repercussions of this challenge?

The Status of the Principles and the Use of Infinite Regress in Nicholas of Autrecourt The infinite regress argument encourages in particular reflection on the status of the principles of knowledge: that is to say, to determine what a principal is and to reply to one of the questions from which scepticism is made up: what can be demonstrated? As shown above, this question occurs several times in Aristotle, in the Posterior Analytics and, especially in the Metaphysics II and IV, with regard to the justification of the first principle, the principle of non-


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contradiction. The idea that scepticism is linked to an ignorance of logic or to sophistical practices is fairly common in the Middle Ages.7 Nicholas of Autrecourt’s contribution to this controversy is interesting, because he uses an argument close to Sextus’s to demonstrate that the truth is no more than a hypothesis which is guaranteed only by indemonstrable principles. Nicholas’s theory of knowledge is foundationalist par excellence: it is a theory that supposes that there are basic self-justifying beliefs, which serve as the principles or foundations for the whole structure of knowledge that can be inferred from them. The basic items of knowledge are of two sorts: immediate perceptions—as the result of a principle according to which all that appears is true (a principle which is described as ‘probable’); and the complex principles—analytic propositions that can be reduced to the first principle or principle of non-contradiction.8 There are, then, two meta-principles under which can be grouped the whole collection of items of basic knowledge, from which other knowledge can be inferred. It is characteristic of these principles that they cannot be false. I shall leave aside here the question of whether the empirical principles (veridical perception) are evident, and confine myself to the logical principles. As a result of his foundationalism, Nicholas is immediately concerned with the question of regress when providing justification. He never at any time treats the intellect as a faculty of principles of knowledge. There are therefore two problems: what are the logical principles of knowledge—in what sense are they conditions for the possibility of truth? How are they known—how do we know that they do indeed serve as a foundation for knowledge? In this context, Nicholas uses the infinite regress argument, but he never tries to refute it. The regress is accepted as a challenge to any foundationalist theory of knowledge, because if it is effective, it will make all knowledge impossible. Regress to infinity is thus used to prove the necessity for a foundation. Nicholas’s thesis—a more radical version of Aquinas’s—is that all our knowledge must be founded on the first principle, which is the principle of noncontradiction. This thesis is Aristotelian in origin, because in Metaphysics IV,4 (1006a5-10) Aristotle defends the idea that the principle of non-contradiction is the most certain of all. As a result, for Nicholas all certainty is that conferred by this first principle to which all other principles must be reduced, along with the conclusions of our demonstrations, where ‘reduce’ means ‘show the 7) 8)

Thomas Aquinas, In Met. IV, l. 6, n. 12. O’Donnell (1939) (Exigit ordo = EO) 235: 6-9; cf. Grellard (2005), chapters 2 and 3.

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foundation of ’. In this sense, the first principle functions as a sort of metaprinciple with regard to analytic propositions, which can be taken in each case as the principle for a particular demonstration. It is here that Nicholas takes up the infinite regress argument in order to show that every principle of a demonstration is not sufficiently justified but still needs to be reduced to the first principle. Section 8 of the second letter to Bernard is thus very clear: the conclusion of a syllogism must be reduced to the first principle either immediately, or mediately, that is to say, in such a way that the principle of this conclusion is the conclusion of another syllogism. But this reduction has to stop somewhere or it will enter an infinite regress.9 Every proof contains the first principle virtually, and a regress of proofs will simply make this ultimate foundation actual. Nicholas seems therefore to presuppose here that only the first principle truly answers to the need for indemonstrability and it alone can function truly as a principle. What is the meaning of this primacy of the principle of non-contradiction and how is it known? Nicholas does not really explain how it is known. He seems to be content with the fact that it is indemonstrable, because to demonstrate it necessarily leads to begging the question. Nicholas admits the principle of non-contradiction simply because it is a necessary condition for debate. Nicholas insists strongly on the foundational character of the first principle. It constitutes, first of all, the condition for the possibility of all discourse, and in this sense, it is presupposed by all philosophical dispute. This primacy of the principle of non-contradiction is seen in two specific ways. First, it enjoys a primacy that Nicholas calls negative. Nothing comes before this principle, in the sense that it cannot be the conclusion of a syllogism—it cannot be demonstrated—nor reduced to another principle. On this point, Nicholas is in agreement with Aristotle, for whom the principle of non-contradiction cannot be demonstrated but is required necessarily by every demonstration.10 The primacy of the principle of non-contradiction is also described in a positive way. Every conclusion of a demonstration must be able to be reduced to the evidentness of the first principle, which is what puts a stop to an infinite regress. This idea of reduction is important because it underlines the role of the first principle in a theory of knowledge: that of providing epistemic justification. It is indeed in the very context of the justification of our complex

9)

Nicholas of Autrecourt, Second letter to Bernard, § 8. For a fuller account of my views, see my Introduction (esp. 29-41) to Nicholas of Autrecourt (2001). 10) Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 4, 1006 a 1—1006 a 25 (Aristoteles latinus, XXV, 2, 66-67).


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knowledge that Nicholas introduces this idea of reduction to the first principle. Certainly, Nicholas accepts (§2) that any analytic proposition, since it is known by a simple analysis of the terms which reveals that the predicate is included in the subject, is evident and can function as the principle of a demonstration (EO 236:40-2). But what reveals the inclusion of the predicate in the subject is the fact that the predication is not contradictory. And so, in the final recourse, it is the first principle that once more appears as the ultimate foundation. One problem remains, however, in suspense. Who authorizes us to say that our principles are true and that there exists something true independently of our demonstrations, given that the first principle guarantees only the evidentness of the conclusions of demonstrations? In fact, for Nicholas, truth remains precisely an indemonstrable hypothesis (and in a certain way an unnecessary one), and it is the infinite regress argument that allows him to establish this. His point of departure is as follows (EO 235:39-49). If the intellect can say about a thing that it is true, and so by virtue of the first principle, the opposite of this thing is not known. Conversely, what is evident, and so known, must be admitted as true. Truth is therefore a simple hypothesis of which, at best, an indirect proof can be given, by reductio. Nicholas reasons as follows: 1. If p is true (= if it is posited as an hypothesis: it is a fact that p/ it is thus), it cannot be known that ~p. [to know =df clear and evident apprehension; by application of the principle of non-contradiction] 2. If it is known that p, then p is true. [converse of (1)] 3. If (If I know that p, then ~p is true), then nothing is certain, that is to say, the principle of non-contradiction is not valid (there is no knowledge). [proof by reductio: negation of (2), that is of the thesis that one wants to demonstrate] 4. Something is certain. [proof by the principles: the principles are apprehended in a clear and evident way, knowledge of the nominal definition of the terms is enough to gain the intellect’s assent] (See EO 235:6-9) 5. Therefore, it is not the case that (If I know that p, then ~p). [application of modus tollens to (3): p -> q; ~q; therefore ~p] 6. I know that p, etc. (2) [proof by reductio; negation of the thesis, negation of the negation, and so thesis (2)] It seems clear then that Nicholas does not have a direct proof of the truth of knowledge founded on the principles. It merely has to be admitted that there

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is a link between evidentness and truth, that is to say, we must put forward the hypothesis that what is evident is true. Indeed, Nicholas proves just afterwards that it cannot be established directly that our evident principles are true (EO 237:1-7). We must admit as a principle that there is truth. For if we want to prove that a proposition p is true, we are faced with the following dilemma. the premisses q and r which allow us to prove that p is true need to be either (1) true or (2) evident. If (1), then we still have to show that q and r are true, otherwise we are begging the question (or else we are using the hypothetical mode). But, in order to prove the truth of these premisses, they have to be inferred from other true premisses, q’ and r’, and so on. But then we shall have an infinite regress. And so we must say (2) that p is true because the premisses which demonstrate it are evident, that is in themselves. But we are guilty of begging the question by granting what we wish to demonstrate, that is to say, the link between truth and evidentness. In this way the conjunction of the three sceptical modes—infinite regress, hypothetical reasoning and the vicious circle—allow Nicholas of Autrecourt to show that truth is an indemonstrable hypothesis.

Buridan’s Criticism of Nicholas of Autrecourt: The Multiplicity of Principles Nicholas’s contemporaries, as is well known, were far from accepting the way in which he radicalized the need for foundation by the first principle. In particular, his colleague in the Faculty of Arts, John Buridan, criticized the idea of a unique first principle and proposed instead the idea of a multiplicity of principles of demonstration.11 What is interesting is that, in refuting Nicholas, Buridan is faced by the same questions about how the principles of knowledge can be known, and he too has to face the infinite regress argument. Buridan’s Summulae dialecticae VIII,5 opens, in a rather annunciatory and programmatic way, on the very question of infinite regress. Borrowing almost literally Aristotle’s argument in Posterior Analytics I,3, he deduces from it the need to prevent a demonstration from stopping at an indemonstrable premiss. One or several principles are therefore necessary.12 Nicholas of Autrecourt’s position is, moreover, recognized as central with regard to this question about

11) 12)

See especially King (1987), Zupko (1993) and Grellard (2005), chapters 8 and 9. John Buridan (1999) (Summulae dialecticae = SL), VIII, 5, 1.


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principles, and it is presented as one of the solutions to the regress argument. Buridan wants to show that it is impossible that there is only one principle. The argument is primarily logical and it rests on the syllogistic form of all demonstrations. Because the conclusion of a syllogism is demonstrated by two premisses, either these two premisses are indemonstrable, or both or at least one of them must itself be demonstrated. But, given the impossibility of an infinite regress, it must be admitted that we shall arrive at a syllogism composed of two indemonstrable premisses (SL VIII,5,2). As a result, since these indemonstrable premisses are principles, according to Aristotle himself, it must be admitted that there is not just one principle. It is clear that here Buridan has in view the argument based on the syllogistic form put forward by Nicholas in Section 8 of his second letter to Bernard.13 It is therefore interesting to realize that Buridan uses the infinite regress argument, just like Nicholas, to defend the necessity of a foundation. But a distinction between the two philosophers appears immediately, because for Buridan the principles are many. Here Buridan is placing the first block in his defence of both a partial foundation of knowledge and a multiplicity of principles. Buridan must still, however, explain why Aristotle says of the principle of non-contradiction that it is the most certain and implies that its primacy is unique. The answer is two-fold. From the strictly logical point of view, Buridan distinguishes being primary in respect of commonness, and being primary with regard to the evidentness of primacy, in the sense of indemonstrability. The principle of noncontradiction, being the first principle, is the most common principle: it can be used in a demonstration of any type whatsoever (whereas the sciences have to use their own principles). Similarly, it is the most evident principle. But, according to Buridan, what is brought up by the infinite regress is primacy in the sense of indemonstrability (first being understood as immediate, the absence of any anterior premiss). We have here, therefore, a sharp distinction between justification and demonstration. For Nicholas, the most certain is the best justified and so what makes any demonstration legitimate, whereas Buridan defends the legitimacy of demonstration that does not require the highest degree of certitude. Buridan therefore accepts the negative primacy of the first principle in the way that Nicholas understands it (the first principle is not the conclusion of a demonstration), but not the positive primacy (the first principle is the premiss of every demonstration).14

13) 14)

See above, p. 336. See Nicholas of Autrecourt, Second letter to Bernard §2, and cf. n. 10.

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As well as this exegetical answer, Buridan gives a logical and epistemological one. The idea that knowledge is one because it is founded on a unique principle should be rejected, because there as many principles and middle terms as there are conclusions. There is an infinity of conclusions and so there is an infinity of principles. Buridan proves the infinity of conclusions by referring to mathematical examples where the properties of an infinity of figures can be demonstrated, and from there he draws the conclusion that the principles are infinite, since for every object of demonstration there must be infinitely many different subjects, not subordinated according to predication, and so there is an infinity of indemonstrable premisses (SL VIII,5,2). The question that can be posed, however, is to know whether in this case Buridan does not deprive himself of the logical solution to the infinite regress which Aristotle proposed and which is based on the reciprocal limitation of the extreme terms. If there is an infinity of middle terms, there will be an infinity of subjects and predicates. Will there not be an infinite regress of middle terms, so that it will become impossible to reach the principles. In other words, does not the defence of the infinity of principles and middle terms lead to the reintroduction of the infinite regress? Buridan’s reply is extremely interesting. There is an infinity of subjects and predicates, but for a given subject and predicate, there is not an infinity of possible predications. Buridan brings out the full meaning of the idea of the reciprocal limitation of the extreme terms. The whole collection of terms is infinite, but the construction of a predication is not a matter of choosing among infinite combinations. The subject of a science (the genus, in Aristotelian terms) necessarily limits the principles. The theoretical possibility of an infinite regress thus is seen to be purely formal, and in practice demonstrations always makes use of principles constructed on the basis of middle terms determined by the subject of the science. It still remains, however, for Buridan to explain how the principles are known.15 For this purpose, Buridan puts forward an empirical reading of the Aristotelian solution. First, analytical and empirical principles must be distinguished.16 Analytical principles can serve as a model, given that it is impossible to refuse to assent to them. The intellect’s natural inclination to approve them

15)

See De Rijk (1994) and Zupko (2003), esp. chapter 12. John Buridan, Quaestiones in libros analyticorum posteriorum, II, q. 11, unpublished transcription by H. Hubien: ‘Deinde etiam notandum est quod duplicia sunt principia indemonstrabilia. Quaedam sunt quorum rationes terminorum se manifeste includunt aut manifeste excludunt scito quid nominis. Alia sunt principia quorum rationes terminorum nec se manifeste includunt nec manifeste excludunt.’ 16)


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is therefore the sign of our more general inclination to approve what is true. Conversely, the second type of principal is not immediate (that is to say, assent is not chronologically immediate, but the proposition is immediate in that it is indemonstrable), but presupposes an inductive process, starting from something that is sensibly given, according to the genetic scheme set out by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics II.19. Buridan emphasizes the naturalist aspect of his epistemology here by indicating that it is as natural for the intellect to approve the principles (analytic or empirical) as for fire to burn. It is therefore clear that Buridan held that it was necessary for our knowledge to be founded on principles. In multiplying these principles, however, he makes this foundation partial and determined by context. It seems to him necessary to reject Nicholas of Autrecourt’s reductionist ideal. What in fact emerges is that, for Buridan, the question of the beginning, the point of departure, of knowledge is not simply a question of logic, but it is a question of fact, which depends on each particular science. We have an example of this relativity of foundations in the particular case of the circular syllogism. A syllogism is never absolutely circular—this type of circularity is rejected by Aristotle at the very point after he has rejected infinite regress. And yet circularity relative to a previous syllogism is possible, where from the conclusion and the converse of one premiss, the other premiss is inferred. This particular case underlines the importance in the enterprise of justification of the coherence of our beliefs amongst themselves, as opposed to an exclusively foundationalist conception which is open to infinite regress. Buridan therefore insists especially on our capacity to construct proofs each time it is necessary, based on principles adapted to the object of study.

Conclusion It can therefore be seen clearly how the treatment of infinite regression by Nicholas of Autrecourt and John Buridan contributes to clarify their different conceptions of epistemic justification and of the role and status of the principles of knowledge. Buridan clearly depends on the Aristotelian treatment of the question of infinite regress in his approach, and he gives it in the main a logical answer. By contrast, whether he took his information from Aristotle or from Sextus,17 it is interesting to note that Nicholas uses the infinite regress 17)

See Sextus Empiricus, Informationes pirronarum, II, 85, Paris BN lat 14700, f. 104 vb: ‘Dissonancia igitur existentia a dogmaticis de vero, quia quidam dicunt utique esse aliquid verum, quidam autem dicunt nichil esse verum, non contingit dissonancia iudicare ( . . .); veram autem

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argument to establish the necessity of a first principle (the foundation of all knowledge) and to defend the primacy of what is evident over what is true, which is reduced to a mere hypothesis. We cannot, however, speak of Nicholas’s ‘Pyrrhonism’, because a large part of Pyrrhonian procedure (the idea that epoche leads to ataraxia), is completely unknown to him. Even the idea of Nicholas’s ‘scepticism’ is highly arguable.18 None the less, it remains true that some of his positions produce an effect of scepticism, and that some Pyrrhonian elements can be identified in his work. But what I have wanted to emphasize most of all is this: given that there was a sceptical tradition in the Middle Ages, which was partially inherited from Antiquity and remodelled on the basis of characteristically medieval problems and tools, its principal aspect is methodological. Thus, taking this particular sceptical argument as our point of departure, we see that the sceptical problem in the Middle Ages, rather than being an epistemological doctrine that holds that nothing can be known, is an epistemological stimulus that leads thinkers to face the positions they defend with theoretical difficulties that require them to clarify their thinking. And so in the Middle Ages scepticism is more than a thesis or a systematic philosophy: it is a breeding-ground for arguments which make philosophers think.

demonstrationem esse dicens meam quod per se invicem est incidit rationem, et demonstrationem petetur veram oportet ipsam esse et illius aliam et usque in infinitum. Impossibile est autem infinita demonstrare , impossibile est ergo scire et quod sit aliquid verum.’ 18) I return to this question in Grellard (forthcoming).


www.brill.nl/viv

Theory of Supposition vs. Theory of Fallacies in Ockham Catarina Dutilh Novaes Leiden, The Netherlands

Abstract I propose to examine the issue of whether the ancient tradition in logic continued to be developed in the later medieval period from the vantage point of the relations between two specific groups of theories, namely the medieval theories of supposition and the (originally) ancient theories of fallacies. More specifically, I examine whether supposition theories absorbed and replaced theories of fallacies, or whether the latter continued to exist, with respect to one particular author, William of Ockham. I compare different parts of Ockham’s Summa Logicae, namely III-4 (on fallacies), and the final chapters of part I and first chapters of part II (on supposition). I conclude that there is overlap of conceptual apparatus and of goals (concerning propositions that must be distinguished) in Ockham’s theories of supposition and of fallacies, but that the respective conceptual apparatuses also present substantial dissimilarities. Hence, theories of supposition are better seen as an addition to the general logical framework that medieval authors had inherited from ancient times, rather than the replacement of an ancient tradition by a medieval one. Indeed, supposition theories and fallacy theories had different tasks to fulfil, and in this sense both had their place in fourteenth century logic. Keywords Ockham, supposition theory, theory of fallacies, distinguishing propositions

When reflecting on the traditions of ancient logic in the Middle Ages, one may even go as far as asking: is there such a thing as ancient logic in the Middle Ages? The general problem can be put as follows: true enough, medieval logical theories were almost always in some way or another inspired by ancient logical theories. But two hypotheses suggest themselves: – Medieval theories replaced, or at least merged with, the ancient theories, and thus the latter ceased to exist as such; © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007

DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217812

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C. Dutilh Novaes / Vivarium 45 (2007) 343-359

– Ancient theories continued to exist alongside with the medieval new theories. In fact, historical evidence indicates that it is the second hypothesis that best describes the actual developments of that period;1 that is, ancient logic continued to be developed as such, and was not entirely replaced by the medieval novelties. But the interaction between “new (medieval) logic” and “old (ancient) logic”2 deserves further analysis. I propose to examine this issue from the vantage point of the relations between two specific groups of theories, namely the medieval theories of supposition and the (originally) ancient theories of fallacies. Of course, we are all familiar with De Rijk’s thesis: theories of supposition were developed in the twelfth and thirteenth century within the framework of fallacy theories.3 But the issue as to whether supposition theories absorbed and replaced theories of fallacies, or whether the latter continued to exist, is worth examining in more detail. More specifically, I intend to analyse the state of affairs in the fourteenth century with respect to one particular author, William of Ockham. I compare different parts of Ockham’s Summa Logicae, namely III-4 (where he presents his analysis of the theory of fallacies), and the final chapters of part I and first chapters of part II (where the notion of supposition plays a central role); to a lesser extent, I also refer to Ockham’s commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi (vol. III of Ockham’s Opera Philosophica).4

Preliminary Considerations My aim is to compare Ockham’s theories of supposition and of fallacies. How can one compare two theories? Clear criteria of comparison are needed. For 1)

Cf. Ebbesen (1982). Notice that this distinction does not refer to the “logica vetus / logica modernorum” distinction. 3) Cf. De Rijk (1962, 1967). For the present purposes, it is irrelevant whether De Rijk’s thesis is correct or not; its role in the discussion presented here is merely that of motivating a closer inspection of the relations between theories of supposition and theories of fallacies. 4) There seem to be methodological reasons for focusing on Summa III-4 rather than on Expositio Elenchorum: a Summa is obviously more likely than a commentary to present a systematic account of the theories and doctrines defended by a given author; the Summa in its totality contains both Ockham’s theories of supposition and of fallacies, allowing for textual unity in the comparison; and finally, in a commentary such as the Expositio, authors tend to be more “obedient” towards the text being commented on, instead of presenting their own theories. This being said, in the Summa one does not find meta-remarks on the nature of the theories being discussed, 2)


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the present investigation, I adopt two main criteria, which appear to be two crucial aspects of any theory: – The goals of the theory, the results it is expected to accomplish; – The (conceptual and technical) apparatus used in the theory. Two theories may have the same goals, while the conceptual apparatus used to attain these goals is very different; moreover, two theories may use a very similar apparatus, but to perform different tasks. In what follows, I employ the notions of goal and apparatus in order to compare the two theories in question. Concerning Ockham’s theories of supposition and of fallacies, one cannot help noticing the trivial fact that each of them is treated in different parts of the Summa (the same holds for Buridan’ Summulae de Dialectica,5 by the way). So it might seem that I am just stating the obvious—that Ockham’s theory of supposition and his theory of fallacies are indeed different theories. But given that a strong case has been made for the historical hypothesis that theories of supposition have emerged from theories of fallacies, the issue of the boundaries between them in an author such as Ockham is worth investigating. In other words, that these are different theories but with points of contact may be a rather uninformative claim, but showing where they differ and which are (some of ) these points of contact in the case of Ockham seems to be an endeavour worth being undertaking.

Similarities Assuming that De Rijk’s thesis is at least to some extent historically correct, and that theories of supposition did develop within the framework of theories of fallacies, one is inclined to expect significant similarities between them. The issue of conceptual priority of one theory versus another is also at stake: it is often the case that medieval philosophers would make use of wellestablished Aristotelian concepts to justify and provide foundations for their own theories. So one could expect the theory of fallacies to serve as foundation for the theory of supposition, but the situation is often more complex than this.

while such remarks do help clarifying them; therefore, I also turn to the Expositio in order to include some of those meta-remarks in the discussion. 5) In Buridan’s Summulae, supposition is the subject matter of the 4th treatise and fallacies of the 7th treatise.

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Equivocation—Modes of Supposition, Temporal Propositions The most conspicuous point of contact between Ockham’s theory of fallacies and his theory of supposition concerns the fallacy of equivocation, in particular the distinction between personal, simple and material supposition and the third mode of equivocation. The third mode of equivocation is the contextual mode of equivocation, and concerns terms that, taken individually, are not equivocal, but which, when put in a given propositional context, can stand for different things. According to Ockham, certain propositions allow their subject term to have more than one kind of supposition—and therefore must be distinguished—, and that corresponds neatly to the third mode of equivocation. In fact, this mode of equivocation serves as conceptual justification for the distinction between the three kinds of supposition, as the passage below shows (notice the term ‘penes’): But in the proposition “Man is a species”, because “species” signifies the intention of the soul, it can have simple supposition. And it is a proposition to be distinguished according to [penes] the third mode of equivocation, in that the subject can have personal or simple supposition. (I, 65, 13-17)

Interestingly, the general rules determining when a term can have a supposition other than personal supposition in a proposition, which had been formulated in I, 65, are stated again in the chapter dedicated to the third mode of equivocation:— There is a rule that, when of the major and minor terms of a proposition one is a name of first intention, without a universal or particular sign, and the other is a name of second intention, that proposition should be distinguished according to the third mode of equivocation, in that the name of first intention can supposit simply or personally, and as a result of this the fallacy of equivocation can occur in the argument (III-44, 10-15).

Indeed, in III-4,4 innumerable references to the concept of supposition and to propositions that must be distinguished can be found. In commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi, the chapter dedicated to the third mode of equivocation (I,2, § 9) is the only part of this text where the concept of supposition is systematically mentioned (other references to this concept in the text are scant and incidental). Another kind of propositional ambiguity that is considered to be a case of equivocation is that related to temporal propositions.6 The fact that proposi6)

Cf. De Sophisticis Elenchis, 166a, 2-7.


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tions having a tensed copula must be distinguished is mentioned in different parts of the Summa: the chapter concerning doubts that can be raised against the notion of supposition in the first part (I, 72), the chapter concerning the truth conditions of temporal propositions in the second part (II, 7), and the chapter concerning equivocation in general (III-4, 2). In I, 72 and II, 7, Ockham accounts for the ambiguity of temporal propositions in terms of the different things their subject terms can supposit for, which again shows the conceptual affinity between the notion of supposition and the fallacy of equivocation (in III-4, 2 he uses the term “stare pro” instead of “supponere pro”). And so any such proposition (“Socrates was a man”) is to be distinguished, in that such a term can supposit for those who exist now or for those who existed in the past. Similarly, it cannot supposit for those who will exist except in respect of a verb about the future and so that proposition is to be distinguished, in that its term can supposit for those who exist or those who will exist. Similarly for those who can be signified and are not, it cannot supposit except in respect of a verb about the possible or the contingent, and so all such are to be distinguished in that the subject can supposit for those which exist or for those which may exist or may happen to exist. And so all such propositions as follows are to be distinguished: ‘Every man was white’, ‘Every white thing will be a man’, ‘Every white thing can be a man’, ‘It happens that every man runs’ (I, 72, 46-57) And it should first be known that any proposition about the past and about the future is to be distinguished in that the subject can supposit for that which exists or that which existed, if it is a proposition about the past, or for that which exists or for that which will exist, if it is a proposition about the future. (II, 7, 3-8) But if I were to say thus: “The white man was a man”, given that no man was ever white, the subject does not stand for many things—that is, for those who were white or for those who are white, because there never was such, but it is taken (denotatur) to stand for such in this negative proposition, “The white man did not exist”. For it is taken to stand for such only under disjunction. (sub disiunctione) (III-4, 2, 15-32)

At this stage of the analysis, De Rijk’s thesis appears to receive strong support from the clear conceptual proximity between a theory of supposition that focuses in cases of more than one different suppositum being possible, and the concept of equivocation (in particular the third mode of equivocation). In effect, equivocation can be explained as the semantic phenomenon according to which a term signifies or supposits for different things, whereas the different kinds of supposition can be justified by (the third mode of ) equivocation. Amphiboly Prima facie, amphiboly differs from equivocation only with respect to the length of the ambiguous phrase in question: equivocation concerns single

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terms, whereas amphiboly concerns phrases composed of more than one term. Just as with equivocation, there are three kinds of amphiboly. About which it should be known first that, just as the fallacy of equivocation happens because another term (dictio) can be taken in different ways, so the fallacy of amphiboly happens because another expression (oratio) can be taken in different ways, without it being the case that another term can first be taken in different ways; so that, just as the term is multiple, so the whole sentence is multiple (III-4,5, 2-7).

In practice, complex expressions having more than one meaning are often cases of syntactical ambiguity, that is, of the possibility of different parsings of the phrase. So in this respect amphiboly differs from equivocation, which only concerns semantic ambiguity. But Ockham also applies the concept of amphiboly to propositions that feature semantic ambiguity,7 in particular the second mode of amphiboly (amphiboly by analogy). The latter is a very useful conceptual tool for Ockham; he uses it to interpret numerous cases of propositions (in authoritative and holy texts) which, de virtute sermonis are false, but whose author presumably meant something else (intentio auctoris), namely a secondary and derivative reading of the proposition (one that is true).8 It should be known about the second mode of amphiboly that a proposition is multiple according to the second mode of amphiboly when some proposition is properly, and from its primary signification or imposition, taken in just one way, but improperly and secondarily it can be taken otherwise and have another sense. (III-6, 6, 2-6) . . . and in this way countless propositions in logic and metaphysics should be distinguished. And likewise in natural philosophy, according to Aristotle’s opinion . . . (III-4, 6, 140-3)

In the chapters dedicated to amphiboly, there are very few explicit references to the notion of supposition,9 and that seems to indicate the absence of connection between the two notions. But if we consider a proposition that must be distinguished on account of its subject having more than one possible

7)

This is a genuine transformation of Aristotle’s original theory of fallacies. Notice that this is a clear case of an ancient concept (amphiboly) being put to use in a different context, where it acquires even greater importance. 9) Exception: ‘Quarta regula est quod quando accipitur modus cum dicto, illa propositio est distinguenda, eo quod potest denotari modus competere toti propositioni cuius est dictum, vel propositioni de inesse in qua supponit pronomen demonstrativum vel nomen proprium alicuius pro quo supponit subiectum respectu eiusdem praedicati mediante hoc verbo ‘est’ de praesenti.’ (III-4, 5, 67-72). 8)


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supposition (according to the third mode of equivocation), would it not be correct to say that such a proposition is amphibolous?10 And that there is some overlap between the different kinds of fallacies is something recognized as unproblematic by Ockham. In particular, he mentions the overlap between amphiboly and composition and division,11 and between equivocation and amphiboly. It should be said that it does not matter much now whether the [given] case is considered an instance of equivocation or of amphiboly. There can perhaps be amphiboly as much as equivocation, and it does not present a problem that these fallacies should come together. (III-4,7, 67-70) And since such different senses can be had without any difference in punctuation, there is amphiboly there, even if there should be composition and division there. (III-4,5, 110-3)

So it seems unproblematic that an occurrence of the third mode of equivocation would be at the same time an occurrence of (the second mode of ) amphiboly. And if this is indeed the case, then there seems to be an important kinship between Ockham’s theory of supposition and the fallacy of amphiboly, albeit not explicitly formulated by him. Division and Composition—Modal Propositions As is well known, Ockham maintains that there are two kinds of modal propositions, sine dicto and cum dicto, and that the latter is always ambiguous in that it can be interpreted in the sense of division or in the sense of composition (according to the two kinds of fallacies). (If interpreted in the sense of division, it is equipollent in meaning to the corresponding modal proposition sine dicto.) A modal proposition said in the first way (cum dicto) is always to be distinguished according to composition and division. In the composite sense is always denoted that such a mode is of the proposition of its dictum (de propositione illius dicti). But the divided sense of such a proposition is always equivalent to the proposition taken with the mode, without such a dictum (sine dicto) (II,9, 12-25)

10)

Cf. Dutilh Novaes (2004b). Ockham remarks that the kind of fallacy at stake can also be relative to a given language, such that what in Latin seems to be a case of distinction according to amphiboly may be in Greek a case of distinction according to division and composition (cf. III-4, 8, 43-38). 11)

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Again, Ockham does not explicitly relate the fallacies of composition and division to the concept of supposition in his analysis of modal propositions. But just as much as in the case of temporal propositions, the ambiguity of modal propositions cum dicto can be accounted for in terms of the supposition of its terms: if “hominem esse animal est necessarium” is interpreted in the sense of division, the subject supposits for actual men only, whereas the predicate supposits for ‘possible’ animals, but if it is interpreted in the sense of composition both terms supposit with ampliation.12 So if one views the fallacies of composition and division in terms of scope (as Ockham seems to do), then their relation with the notion of supposition is quite easily established. His analysis of Aristotle’s example “possibile est sedentem ambulare” (III-4, 8, 25-37) also shows that composition and division are related to the scope given to the modal expression in the proposition. In any case, most of the examples discussed by Ockham in the chapter dedicated to division and composition (III-4, chap. 8) are indeed cases of modal propositions. Fallacy of Figure of Speech—Modes of Personal Supposition A perhaps surprising point of contact between Ockham’s supposition theory and his theory of fallacies concerns the fallacy figurae dictionis and the modes of personal supposition. While the third mode of equivocation is used to justify the different kinds of supposition, here the order of conceptual priority seems to be inverted: the different modes of personal supposition are used as conceptual tools to help identifying fallacies of figure of speech. And in this mode consequences are badly formed where one mode of suppositing is changed into another, as if it were argued thus: “Every man is an animal, therefore an animal is every man.” And to make this example and others similar to it clear, it should first be known that the fallacy of the figure of speech can be detected here, because of the fact that the same term has one supposition in the antecedent and another in the consequent, although this is not sufficient (III-4, 10, 212-8) And it should be known that not every variation in supposition causes the fallacy of the figure of speech . . . But in general there is the fallacy of the figure of speech when the argument—at least when it is an enthymeme—goes from a term which is merely confused in supposition to a term that is determinate in supposition, if no variation at all may be

12)

Notice though that the term “ampliation”, frequently used by other medieval authors to refer to the supposition of a term for entities other than actual entities, is never used by Ockham himself—see Priest and Read (1981).


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made with regard to the other term and how it is disposed; although, along with this, there is the fallacy of the consequent, as in the example proposed. (III-4, 10, 231-7). It is necessary to know that the fallacy of the figure speech does not happen only to be produced because of the different ways in which the same term supposits, but also because of the different ways in which different terms supposit, in such a way that the other corresponding term is not changed. (III-4, 10, 262-5)

In fact, authors other than Ockham, such as Buridan, have provided an account of legitimate inferential relations between categorical propositions on the basis of the modes of personal supposition.13 It is thus to be expected that the modes of personal supposition would also serve to identify certain illegitimate inferences, which according to Ockham fall under the fallacy of figure of speech. The same procedure is used in the commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi II, 7 § 2, where various fallacies of figure of speech are cast in terms of illegitimate moves of ascent and descent involving terms having different kinds of personal supposition.14 But it must be added that this fallacy is broader than what can be accounted for in terms of the modes of personal supposition: only a small subset of fallacies figurae dictionis seems to fall in this category. Propositio est distinguenda The doctrine that many propositions must be distinguished is a fundamental aspect of Ockham’s logic and of his treatment of authoritative and holy texts— propositio est distinguenda is probably one of the most frequently occurring phrases in the whole Summa. Most notably, it occurs with remarkable frequency in the final chapters of part I, in relation to Ockham’s theory of supposition, and in III-4, in particular in the chapters in which languagedependent fallacies are analysed. Such are to be distinguished in the same way . . . And so with many such. (I, 65, 22 and 27) Secondly, it should be noted that any proposition in which such an equivocal term is placed should always be distinguished de virtute sermonis, in that it can be taken in this way or that [way], and this is so whether it is true in one sense and false in another, or whether it is false in both senses or true in both. (III-4, 2, 62-5) 13)

Karger (1993); Dutilh Novaes (2004a). But Ockham adds that ‘non omnis diversitas suppositionis causat figuram dictionis’ (Exp. Elench. p. 190, 22-23). Indeed, in some cases there can be a valid inferential relation between propositions having the same terms in different personal suppositions (namely the valid inferential patterns described in Karger (1993). 14)

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Therefore, we can not only conclude that ‘distinguishing propositions’ is a crucial aspect of Ockham’s thought, but also that his theory of supposition as much as his theory of fallacies are two of the main tools employed to accomplish this task. . . . It is worthwhile for philosophy to acquire the art that lets one know in how many ways a multiple <proposition> is said. But this art (of the Sophistici Elenchi) is of this sort so far as the fallacies in speech are concerned, since in them the argument fails because something is multiple. (Commentary on Sophistici Elenchi II, 1, 16-20)

(Preliminary) Conclusions Given the criteria for comparison between two theories adopted here, Ockham’s theories of supposition and of fallacies seem to bear significant resemblance to each other: the apparatus seems very similar, at least in many aspects, and there appears to be an important common goal, that of “distinguishing propositions”. An issue still to be clarified is whether the supposition apparatus can perform all the legitimate distinctions of propositions, or whether there are propositions which must be distinguished, but not in virtue of their terms having more than one kind of supposition. It seems to me that there are more propositions to be distinguished than there are propositions that can be distinguished by using the supposition apparatus, and in this sense supposition theory alone would not be sufficient for the performance of this task; this might be one reason why Ockham still needs a theory of fallacies, to attempt to cover the gap between what supposition theory can do and all the distinctions of propositions that must be made.

Differences In sum, the number of aspects in which supposition theory and fallacy theory appear to meet is rather impressive. But there are at least just as many aspects in which there seems to be no point of contact between the two theories. In what follows I outline some of them, starting with elements of the theory of fallacies that have no apparent counterpart in supposition theory, and then vice-versa. Fallacies: The Fallacy of Accent and Most Fallacies of Figure of Speech The fallacy of accent obviously has no relation to the notion of supposition, even more so since, as Ockham says it himself, it is a fallacy that only occurs


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in spoken language; insofar as supposition is a property of spoken as well as of written and mental terms, it should have no connection with a property exclusive to spoken language. As for the fallacy of figure of speech, unlike the other language-dependent fallacies (equivocation, amphiboly, composition and division), this fallacy does not concern propositions that may rightly receive two interpretations (which are “distinguenda”); rather, it seems to concern propositions that are easily wrongly interpreted. After the fallacies in speech, in which there are some sentences that are multiple, we should speak of the fallacy of the figure of speech, which does not arise from the fact that any sentence is multiple, but arises rather from the likenesses of some sentences. (III-4, 10, 1-5)

More often than not, what is at stake in fallacies of figure of speech are syncategoremata and other syntactical properties of propositions, and not the supposition of its terms. The exception to this rule is the use of the modes of personal supposition to identify some of these fallacies, mentioned in the previous section, but this is not surprising insofar as the modes of personal supposition are determined primarily by syntactic and syncategorematic aspects of the proposition (word-order and the presence or absence of quantifying terms). Fallacies: Fallacies “extra dictionem” The distinction between fallacies that are language-dependent and those that are not is particularly relevant in the context of Ockham’s philosophy, as it is directly related to the issue of mental language.15 According to Ockham, language-dependent fallacies are those that occur only in written and spoken language, whereas those that are not language-dependent also occur in mental language.16 In practice, Ockham’s views are not free of difficulties, in particular concerning supposition in mental language and the third mode of equivocation.17 It is rather telling that the notion of supposition is virtually absent from the chapters concerning language-independent fallacies; this suggests that supposition theory as it is formulated by Ockham is above all a machinery to be applied to written and spoken language only (although mental terms also supposit, but perhaps in different ways).

15) 16) 17)

Cf. Knuuttila (2003). Cf. Summa III-4, 1, 22 40. Cf. Dutilh Novaes (2004b), Spade (1980a).

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Among the fallacies extra dictionem, some concern primarily propositions within arguments. Belonging to this group are the fallacy of the consequent, the fallacy of begging the question; the fallacy of non-cause as cause; and the fallacy of many questions.18 But since the phenomena provoking these fallacies belong to the propositional level, there is at most an indirect relation to the supposition of the terms in question. From this group, only some fallacies of the consequent are explicitly treated in terms of the personal supposition of terms,19 in a way similar to what had been done for some fallacies of figure of speech. As for the other three fallacies, fallacy of accident, fallacy secundum quid et simpliciter and fallacy of misconception of refutation, only the fallacy of accident seems to have some conceptual proximity to the notion of supposition— it concerns the failure to identify the proper logical form of a proposition; therefore, it can at times correspond to the failure of identifying the right supposita of the terms in question. But Ockham does not mention the notion of supposition in the chapter dedicated to this fallacy, which is all the more surprising since it would seem that at least some fallacies of accident could be treated with the supposition machinery.20 Rather, this kind of fallacy is mainly treated within the framework of syllogistics in Summa III-4,11. In fact, except for the aforementioned case of fallacies of the consequent, I am not aware of any reference to the notion of supposition in any of the seven chapters (III-4, 11-17) dedicated to fallacies extra dictionem. Similarly, virtually no reference to this notion in made in connection to language-independent fallacies in the commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi.21 Supposition: The Uses of the Notion of Supposition That Seem to Have No Counterpart in the Theory of Fallacies Even if one accepts the historical accuracy of De Rijk’s thesis, it is evident that there are aspects of supposition theory—in any case in the fourteenth century—

18) It must be noted though that the fallacy of many questions can be caused by the terms being understood in different ways (suppositing for different things, for example). In this sense this fallacy has a conceptual proximity with the ‘propositio est distinguenda’ issue, but this connection is not explicitly made in Ockham’s text. 19) Cf. Summa III-4. 12. 20) The fallacy of accident is the most important of the language-independent fallacies for Ockham, and these brief remarks are not intended to exhaust its relevance. 21) Exception: a brief reference to supposition in connection with the fallacy secundum quid et simpliciter, Commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi, 268.


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that fall entirely out of the scope of fallacy theory, being thus genuine medieval innovations. When and how this separation took place is an interesting historical question which I shall not address now. I will simply mention some of Ockham’s uses of the notion of supposition that are not reducible to the fallacy framework. Supposition: Modes of Personal Supposition The modes of personal supposition may be helpful in identifying some fallacies figurae dictionis, but the basic fallacies are of no use in defining the modes of personal supposition. Indeed, this fragment of the theory does not concern ambiguities—the terrain par excellence of fallacies. Ockham could have said that the moves of ascent and descent that are not allowed are fallacies, but he does not. Personal supposition is merely confused when the common term supposits personally and descent to a disjunction of singulars is not possible. (I, 70, 44-6)

So it seems evident that not only with respect to the conceptual apparatus but also with respect to the goals to be achieved, no point of contact exists between the fragment of supposition theory concerning the modes of personal supposition and the theory of fallacies (besides the one already mentioned in the previous section). Supposition: The Theory of Truth-Conditions of Propositions As is well known, one of the main uses of the concept of supposition is the definition of the truth-conditions of categorical propositions recursively in terms of the truth of demonstrative propositions of the form “This is a”. But in the chapters in which this fragment of the theory is expounded, no reference is made to fallacies, and neither can I see any obvious conceptual connection. Ockham formulates the truth-conditions of propositions on the basis of the supposition of its terms: in general, if the subject supposits for at least some of the supposita of the predicate, then the proposition is true. But what is sufficient for the truth of such an indefinite <proposition>, if it is indefinite? It should be said that it suffices for the truth of such a proposition that, if it is affirmative, the subject and predicate supposit for the same things, or, if it is negative, that they do not supposit for the same thing—just as this suffices for the truth of a singular proposition. . . . (II, 3, 72-6)

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Again, this fragment of the theory does not concern ambiguities and propositions that must be distinguished, and thus it appears to have nothing in common with the fallacies framework. Different Objects and Different Goals: A Theory of Fallacies Concerns Arguments (Chains of Propositions); a Theory of Supposition Concerns Terms and Propositions A straightforward way to appreciate the significant dissimilarity between Ockham’s supposition theory and his theory of fallacies is the simple examination of the examples he presents. While discussing the notion of supposition, the examples brought up by Ockham are, with no exception that I know of, cases of propositions taken as such. By contrast, in the exposition of his theory of fallacies, virtually all the examples provided are of propositions within the context of arguments. In the latter context, Ockham is not interested in propositions taken in isolation, but rather in propositions insofar as they are a part of a chain of propositions (usually two or three) that constitute an argument. Granted, in both cases the issue of propositions that must be distinguished plays a central role, but within the theory of fallacies its importance is related to the validity or invalidity of the argument in which the propositions are found (and that obviously depends on the interpretation they are to receive). In sum, it can be said that the objects of each theory are different: a theory of fallacies concerns arguments and a theory of supposition concerns terms and propositions. Naturally, insofar as arguments are composed of propositions, there is a relation between these objects; just as much as propositions are composed of terms, and therefore a property of terms such as supposition can be used to distinguish propositions, arguments are composed of propositions, and therefore properties of propositions must be taken into account to assess the validity of arguments. But the fundamental difference between the three logical levels—term level, propositional level and argument level—determines the different scopes of each theory. In practice, each level corresponds to one part of the Summa—first part for terms, second part for propositions, and third part for arguments, and it is thus not surprising that the analysis of the notion of supposition is to be found in the first two parts, whereas the theory of fallacies is expounded in the third part. A Theory of Fallacies Focuses on Error, a Theory of Supposition Does Not I have claimed that distinguishing propositions is a general common goal of Ockham’s theories of supposition and of fallacies. But the distinguishing of propositions has different purposes within each theory.


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In the theory of supposition, propositions must be distinguished within the general framework of the interpretation of authoritative texts; the general aim of supposition theory seems to me to be that of an “algorithmic hermeneutics”, the determination of the range of legitimate readings of a given proposition.22 In this sense, the emphasis of supposition theory is on, so to say, the positive aspect of logic, in particular the definition of the moves that are allowed in the context of propositional interpretation. The treatment of interpretations that are not allowed—of error—is at most an indirect one. In the theory of fallacies, propositions must be distinguished insofar as the failure in doing so can cause an illegitimate inference to be drawn. A theory of fallacies is not a theory of valid arguments; rather, it is essentially a theory of how invalid arguments can have the appearance of being valid. Hence, the emphasis of a theory of fallacies appears to be on error, namely the identification of inferential moves that are not allowed. In sum, while within supposition theory the purpose of distinguishing propositions is that of expanding the range of (interpretational) authorized moves, in the theory of fallacies the same distinction of propositions concerns the reduction of the range of (argumentative) authorized moves. That being said, it is worth noting that one of the aspects in which Ockham’s theory of fallacies seems to deviate from the Aristotelian classical theory is precisely its use for distinguishing propositions, which in Ockham’s case appears to become one of the actual goals of his theory of fallacies, along with the recognition of illegitimate inferences. Therefore, Ockham’s treatment of propositions which are ‘distinguenda’ or ‘multiplex’ within the framework of fallacies really seems to be an original application of this theory, one which brings it closer to supposition theory. It should be known that philosophy is acquired in two ways—through discovery and through being taught. And because philosophy is acquired by being taught either by listening to someone else or by looking at the books of others, and often such people, when they or talking or writing, use multiple [i.e. ambiguous] propositions, which are true in one sense and false in another sense, the learned needs to know the multiplicity of such propositions so as not to take the false for the true or vice versa. And so it is useful to be able to disambiguate sentences that are fallacious because of their multiplicity. (Commentary on the Sophistici elenchi II, 1, 22-9)

22)

For details of my (rather idiosyncratic) views on supposition theory, see Dutilh Novaes (2007), chap. 1, and Dutilh Novaes (forthcoming).

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Conclusions Thus, there seems to be an overlap of conceptual apparatus and of goals (concerning propositions that must be distinguished) in Ockham’s theories of supposition theory and of fallacies. But the respective conceptual apparatuses also present substantial dissimilarities, and their general goals are different: the theory of supposition defines the range of legitimate readings of (some) propositions, while the theory of fallacies outlines illegitimate inferential patterns. So all in all, Ockham’s theory of supposition and his theory of fallacies seem indeed to be two rather dissimilar theories, in spite of some (significant) overlap.23 Hence, theories of supposition are better seen as an addition to the general logical framework that medieval authors had inherited from ancient times, rather than the replacement of an ancient theory by a medieval one. Indeed, these theories and fallacy theories had different tasks to fulfil, and in this sense both had their place in fourteenth century logic. One can formulate the following hypothesis: a theory of supposition was badly needed in a culture of textual commentary like the medieval one, but correctness of reasoning also played a central role therein, and therefore a theory of incorrect but seemingly correct reasoning was certainly also necessary. Thus, there was room for ancient logical theories as well as for new ones. Concerning these two theories, it seems that the ancient tradition was not absorbed and replaced by the medieval new findings, but rather that they coexisted in the later medieval period (even though it is manifest that medieval authors did not simply copy the ancient traditions even in the cases of continuity). The task to be fulfilled by a theory of fallacies—the identification of illegitimate arguments—could not be fulfilled by supposition theory, whereas the tasks to be fulfilled by the concept of supposition also went beyond what could be done only with the fallacy apparatus. Moreover, as I have suggested, supposition theory alone could not account for all the propositions that must be distinguished, so Ockham’s theory of fallacies was perhaps also intended to handle “multiplex” propositions that supposition theory could not handle. This analysis also outlines what I consider to be one of the crucial traits of Ockham’s general logical and philosophical enterprise: how he apparently embraces the Aristotelian tradition and authorities in general, but in fact gives

23) The conclusion of the mutual conceptual independence of these theories may serve as motivation to revisit De Rijk’s historical thesis, even though only extensive historical analysis could serve to disprove it—and extensive historical analysis is not the aim of the present investigation.


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them his own twist. In practice, this can be seen in his emphasis on “propositio est distinguenda”, and in the way he uses, interprets and transforms the theory of fallacies for his own philosophical purposes. These remarks lead to one important issue that I have not dealt with in the present discussion: the extent to which Ockham’s theory of fallacies modifies the original Aristotelian theory of fallacies. Roughly, it seems that there are a couple of interesting modifications, even though in essence it is still the same theory (the same 13 fallacies). But a more thorough comparison of the two texts (Aristotle’s De Sophisticis Elenchis and part III-4 of Ockham’s Summa) would be required to deal with this issue, alongside with a deeper analysis of the commentary on the Sophistici Elenchi. Finally, it is worth noting that theories of fallacies in fact outlived theories of supposition; theories of supposition sort of faded away in the sixteenth century,24 but theories of fallacies continued to play a central role in logic well into the nineteenth century.25

24)

Cf. Ashworth (1982). ‘Before the middle of the nineteenth century, textbooks of logic commonly taught the student how to check the validity of an argument (say in English) by showing that it has one of a number of standard forms, or by paraphrasing it into such a form. The standard forms were syntactic and/or semantic forms of argument in English. The process was hazardous: semantic forms are almost by definition not visible on the surface, and there is no purely syntactic form that guarantees validity of an argument. For this reason most of the old textbooks had a long section on “fallacies”—ways in which an invalid argument may seem to be valid.’ (Hodges 2001). See also Hamblin (1970). 25)


www.brill.nl/viv

Richard Billingham’s Speculum puerorum, Some Medieval Commentaries and Aristotle Egbert P. Bos1 Leiden University

Abstract In the history of medieval semantics, supposition theory is important especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In this theory the emphasis is on the term, whose properties one tries to determine. In the fourteenth century the focus is on the proposition, of which a term having supposition is a part. The idea is to analyse propositions in order to determine their truth (probare). The Speculum puerorum written by Richard Billingham was the standard textbook for this approach. It was very influential in Europe. The theory of the probatio propositionis was meant to solve problems both in (empirically oriented) scientific propositions such as used by the Oxford Calculators, and theological propositions, especially those about the Trinity. The book is original, concise, but not clear in every respect. Studying medieval commentaries may help us to understand Richard’s book. In the present paper three commentaries are presented. The commentators discussed problems about the status of Richard’s book, and about its doctrine: what is the relation between probatio and truth, what is the relation between probatio and supposition, what exactly are mediate and immediate terms (e.g. is the pronoun ‘this’ mediate or immediate?). The commentators sometimes criticize Richard. For example, one of them argues, against Billingham, that the verb ‘can’ ampliates its subject term and is therefore mediate. Keywords analysis of the proposition, supposition, mediate and immediate terms, resolvable and componible terms

The subject of this paper, Richard Billingham’s Speculum puerorum, or Speculum iuvenum, or Terminus est in quem, or De probationibus propositionum was composed about 1340, or even as late as 1350 in Oxford.2 Apart from the 1) 2)

I would like to thank Stephen Read for correcting my English. For more details of his life, see De Rijk (1982b), *17*.


DOI: 10.1163/156853407X217821

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Mirror, Richard wrote tracts on suppositions, ampliations, appellations, consequences,3 obligations, insolubles; he also composed a collection of sophisms with the title Conclusiones, a work on the sophism Numquid scire sit credere, a short tract on the significate of a proposition,4 a tract on the problem Utrum idem Sortes est Sortem esse, and a tract On Compounded and Divided Sense.5

Three Commentaries on the “Mirror” In my analysis of the Mirror, I have used three medieval commentaries. The first two have not been edited and investigated yet. The third, the sophistria from Prague, is a part of a large work that I have published recently.6 The commentaries differ in kind: 1. A short anonymous commentary, preserved in MS Munich, CLM 4385, ff. 107va-112rb, dating from the late fourteenth century, perhaps the early fifteenth century.7 The commentator first gives some of the opening words of a specific section of the Speculum, and adds his comments, which vary from 150 to 500 words. It consists of notes, starting with ‘note’ (‘sciendum’ ). Short though it is, it contains interesting criticisms on Billingham’s Mirror.8 This commentary seems to have been preserved in one manuscript only. 2. A large commentary, mentioned, as Schum indicates in the catalogue of the Amploniana collection of Erfurt, in an Erfurt catalogue of 1412. There it is ascribed to Henricus Coesfeld.9 Probably this Henry of Coesfeld is the same as the one who wrote some theological tracts, prayers, preserved in a manuscript in Ljubljana.10

3)

Recently, Stephanie Weber (2003) has nicely edited Richard’s Consequences together with the edition of a medieval commentary on the basis of MS. Toledo, Archivo del Catedral, Cab., 94-27. 4) Cf. De Rijk (1976). 5) The most recent survey is to be found Weber (2003), 319-321. Weber gives references to earlier surveys. 6) Bos (2005). 7) Henceforth, I refer to this commentary as ‘the Munich commentary’. 8) For instance about Billingham’s rejection of ampliation before a verb, as in ‘Adam is dead’. It is said that Richard cannot explain the truth of this proposition [f. 108ra-b]: Sciendum: magister in presenti loco non [f. 108rb] tenetur quia fundat se in illo quod terminus ampliativus non potest ampliare ante se. Sed hoc est contra communem viam. 9) Schum (1887), 795. 10) Narodna in univerzitetna knijzinica v Ljubljani 148 (Kos 48). Home page: http://www.nuk. uni-lj.si/vstop.egi.

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As far as I know, the commentary is preserved in two manuscripts, viz. MS Krakow, Biblioteka Jagiellonica 2105, ff. 43v-80v, and Erfurt, Amplon., Q 243, ff. 1ra-51rb. The text starts by quoting Proverbs (14,7): ‘Vade contra virum stultum’.11 In the introduction Henry warns the reader that ignorance of logic leads to sins and heresies. The differences between the two manuscripts are great: the one has sections omitted by the other. There are many variant readings, which burdens the apparatus criticus. Here, too, one finds criticisms on Billingham’s tract. 3. A sophistria tract from Prague, ca. 1400, preserved in MS Cracow, Bibl. Jag. 686, ff. 1ra-79rb.12 The tract (consisting of two parts) is a specimen of the art of sophistria. As the author himself says, the tract is intended to help students to avoid problems concerning fallacies in arguments and ambiguities of words. A master of arts or aspirant master dictated it to young students (who elsewhere, though not in this tract, are called ‘sophiste’, perhaps because of their participation in disputes). The purpose of this approach is, as Ashworth says, to prepare the student for the required exercises in sophistria. The sophistria consists of a series of questions which presuppose knowledge of various handbooks, such as those by Peter of Spain, Thomas of Cleves, John Buridan, Marsilius of Inghen, Thomas Manleveld, Richard Billingham and others. Though the sophistria is unfinished, and leaves many problems raised in the tract, unanswered, the discussions are very interesting, even more than in the ‘regular’ commentaries, and reveal many difficulties involved in Richard’s Mirror.

The Present Paper In the present paper I first make a comparison between Aristotle and Billingham with respect to their conception of logic and its relation to the science of the time in which each lived. Then I shall compare the theory of supposition and that of the probationes terminorum on the basis of what the commentators say. Then I shall discuss some problems of Billingham’s tract itself with the help of some hitherto unknown medieval commentaries. These commentaries were probably written in the fifty years after the publication of the Mirror. Next follows the definition of the subject matter of Billingham’s Mirror. What is it about, especially in the view of his commentators? Finally I shall 11) 12)

I intend to publish (parts) of these commentaries. On this sophistria, see the introduction to my edition, esp. ch. 4, and Ashworth (2006).

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discuss problems connected with the two of the four kinds of terms to which different kinds of proof correspond. I shall comment on resolvable and componible terms, and on the corresponding kinds of proof, which can be compared to induction and deduction respectively.

Billingham and Aristotle Billingham is a member of the long tradition of western logic and semantics, which starts with Plato and Aristotle. Especially in his Posterior Analytics, Aristotle is interested in necessary propositions. As elsewhere in his Organon Aristotle’s focus is logical, but his interest in general and necessary propositions may very well be said to correspond to his interest in general natures in reality. His conception of knowledge was very strict.13 Aristotle not only presented a theory of knowledge, he also practised science itself, for instance, physics, astronomy and meteorology. The problem in the sciences, however, is that the individual things studied do not always behave in the same way. They are generated and decease, they grow and change. A scientist admits that those individual things only behave as they do in a majority of cases (‘ut in pluribus’, as the Latin runs). This leads to the question how general and necessary propositions about them can be formulated. Billingham’s logic seems to be a new approach in tune with a new science in the fourteenth century which focuses on changing things and describes them mathematically. In the Middle Ages new approaches in logic were developed, such as the theory of supposition, and that of the probationes propositionum; Billingham follows the latter approach. Still, logicians frequently referred to Aristotle as their main source of inspiration, whatever approach they chose. Thus Billingham made frequent references to the Philosopher. The commentator Henry of Coesfeld labelled the Mirror as ‘satis nova’, but this only in the sense of ‘newly, or recently, invented’. Nevertheless, Henry also says that Billingham’s logic is more commonly taken as belonging to the logica vetus.14 13)

Cf. Ackril1 (1981), 36 and De Rijk (2002), II, 3 just to mention two prominent works. Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [MS E: f. 2va; K. f. 44v]: Tunc probatur propositio: hec scientia est de partibus argumentationis tamquam de suis obiectis, igitur est pars logice veteris. Consequentia tenet per notabile premissum, et assumptum patet, quia est de propositionibus. Et confirmatur, quia subiectum huius scientie significat propositiones, et similiter partes subiective significant propositiones, igitur etcetera. Assumptum patebit ex secundo dubio. Verum tamen est quod, si quis vellet scientiam istam vocare ‘novam’, quia noviter est inventa, tunc ista esset satis nova in ordine ad novam logicam. Sed primus modus est communior loquendi apud philosophos. 14)

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Billingham’s Mirror is about the probationes propositionum (‘proofs of propositions’), which words are also used as a title of the tract. It is a tract on logic, which is based on the proof of general terms, which may help us to analyse propositions. We shall see below that this kind of approach is not the same as the theory of supposition.15 Billingham’s tract is on logic, and gives a formal analysis. One could say, I think, that a theory on the probationes propositionum is especially fruitful in the analysis of scientific propositions, especially because individual terms play a large part in exponible, componible and resolvable propositions (on these terms, see below).16 The matter of propositions, i.e. what they are about, may interest us. Richard’s uses propositions about individual things with changing properties, for instance, propositions about Sortes being bigger than Plato, about Sortes beginning to be white, etc.17 Fourteenth century logicians focused on the analysis of those kinds of propositions. They wished to get to grips with propositions on individual things and their changing properties, so not with necessary propositions, such as ‘all men are mortal’. Generally speaking fourteenth century philosophy took evidentia and certitudo as the notions in which they were especially interested, and the theory of the probationes propositionum seems to be especially supportive of this interest.18 From 1335 onward we find this new kind of logic in England, particularly suited to analyse propositions of physics. In that period, there was a new physics arising in England. The extent to which this new physics determined the new approach to logic, is an interesting question, as Courtenay says.19

Supposition of Terms and Proofs (or: Analyses) of Propositions It is important to distinguish the two notions of probationes of propositions and suppositio of terms. Let us first discuss the theory of the probationes propositionum. As has been said, Billingham’s Speculum uses the latter approach. The theory is intended to analyse complex propositions about individual things, about ‘more’ and ‘less’, about ‘to begin’ and ‘to cease’ and so on, and to distinguish their meanings. Syncategorematic terms such as ‘all’ and ‘than’ play an important part. The 15) 16) 17) 18) 19)

See below, p. 365. See below, p. 369. See also below, p. 365. De Rijk (1975), 99. Courtenay (1987), 240.

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theory of the proofs of propositions is one of the new tools to interpret textbooks. If one wishes to prove a proposition with an analysable term such as ‘man’, one looks for the inferior terms under that term, for instance ‘hoc’ under ‘homo’. This analysis of a term is expressed in an analysis of a proposition, and thus results in a syllogism. For instance: ‘homo currit’ has an analysable term, viz. ‘homo’. It is analysed thus: ‘hoc currit, et hoc est homo, ergo homo currit’. There may also be a probatio of a proposition with what is called an exponible term, for instance ‘incipit’. Now the problematic term ‘incipit’ is analysed, its meaning is made clearer: ‘hoc incipit esse: hoc nunc est et immediate ante hoc non fuit ita quod hoc et, igitur hoc incipit esse’. The analysis of this kind of term helps us understand syncategorematic terms. The argument is about something individual (‘hoc’), and one can easily see how the proposition is verified. The reference to inferior terms points to the empirical bent of this theory, I believe. Here it is clear how the theory of the probationes is useful for the analysis of propositions of natural science. This can be shown, according to Curtis Wilson, for the case of Heytesbury’s Regule and Sophismata.20 Though not mentioning Billingham, John Murdoch’s study on propositional analysis (he discusses William of Heytesbury) points in the same direction. Propositions with ‘begins’ and ‘ceases’ can very well be analysed by the probationes literature.21 One of the novelties in medieval semantics is supposition theory. Especially since De Rijk’s pioneering works of 1962-1967, tracts about the properties of terms such as supposition, ampliation, appellation, have been edited and studied. The nature of the theory of supposition is not easy to determine. Still, it seems worthwhile trying, because this may help also us to understand the theory of the proofs of propositions mentioned above. I shall not enter here into discussions about the precise nature of the theory of supposition. Recently, stimulating research has been done by Jack Zupko for Buridan’s logic,22 and by Catarina Dutilh Novaes for Ockham’s.23 20)

Wilson (1945), 12-13. Murdoch (1979). 22) Zupko (2003), ch. 4. 23) In her recent book Catarina Dutilh Novaes discusses different interpretations of the theory. According to her, it does not explain the mechanisms of reference nor determine the referent. She concludes, quite convincingly, that the theory of supposition can be best viewed as a theory of what she calls ‘algorithmic hermeneutics’. It is a theory to help interpret propositions. It must be remembered that the theory is formal, but semantic, syntactic and pragmatic considerations play a part. A purely formal analysis without regard to outward reality did not exist in the Middle Ages: see Dutilh Novaes (2005), esp. § 1.6. 21)

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The tract on the probationes propositionum is not about the truth as such of such propositions. Supposition and truth are not the same, at least not in, for instance, Ockham’s and Buridan’s views, but supposition makes clear to what things the one who utters the proposition commits himself.24 In the theory of proof, one tries to derive the proof or falsity of propositions from an analysis of a term that can be analysed.25 The term is called the mediate term. With the help of the analysis one can determine the truth of propositions used in textbooks much more easily, as the medieval commentators themselves say.

The First Subject of Billingham’s Mirror What is Richard’s Mirror about? What is, to use medieval terms, its subiectum primum (‘first subject’) or, in other words, its first formal object? What is its difference from other logical tracts, especially those about supposition? How is the proposition, of which it purports to give an analysis, or probatio conceived—what is its status? What is the relation between the language in which the proposition is construed, and the intellect and senses, which are— in a certain respect—the basis? What is the relation between the notions of truth, proof and knowledge? Billingham seems to be interested in propositions with the following subjects: 1. Propositions about contingent facts, especially about individuals, in both affirmative and negative propositions. Even when discussing universal affirmative propositions he is not interested in necessary, scientific conclusions, for instance ‘all men are mortal’, which pretend to be true for all times. He intends a contingent fact about all men, for instance ‘all men are white’. Billingham is aware that one cannot prove such non-necessary propositions in the traditional Aristotelian way. They can be explained and analysed, so that their truth value can be determined. It may be added that Aristotle also allows singular statements as premises26 and non-universal conclusions.27

24)

Zupko (2003), 61, and 310, n. 10. Cf. De Rijk (1982b), *3*. 26) Kneale and Kneale (1971), 68. 27) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 23-44; II, 2, 23-44; II, 3, 26-46; II, 4, 25-45; II, 5, 12-27. 25)

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2. Propositions about differences within a species, which are expressed by propositions having a comparative or superlative form, for instance; ‘Socrates is stronger than Plato’.28 3. Propositions about identity, or difference between individual things, for instance ‘Socrates is different from Plato’.29 4. Universal propositions about contingent facts (cf. 1), but with the explicit mention of something excepted, or with underlining of the fact expressed in contradistinction to other states of affairs (propositions with ‘only’, for instance ‘only a man runs’).30 5. Propositions about things as far as they are in time, i.e. things that are said to exist before or after some moment of time.31 6. Propositions as far as they are used in physics, where beginning and end of change is at issue, for instance ‘this begins to be’.32 7. Modal propositions with ‘officiable’, or: ‘functionalisable’ terms, such as ‘contingent’, ‘possible’, ‘impossible’; for instance, ‘it is contingent that you are’.33 Apart from these specific kinds of propositions Billingham emphasizes the importance of word order, especially in propositions with functionalisable terms. In the final section of the tract he gives three rules about word order.34 In general one could say that, according to Billingham, the primary and most fundamental signification of a term is individual existing things. This existential import is preserved when a term precedes a verb. When it comes after a verb, the term denotes the same individual, but regardless its existence. Billingham’s intention is to analyse what are called ‘probable’ propositions (‘propositiones probabiles’). The ‘term ‘probabilis’ may have different meanings. ‘Probare’ can be used for demonstration in the strict sense, as synonymous with 28)

Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 49-53; II, 2, 49-53; II, 3, 51-55; II, 4, 51-55; II, 5, 28-33. 29) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 54; II, 2, 54; II, 3, 56; II, 4, 57; II, 5, 34. 30) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 54; II, 2, 54; II, 3, 56; II, 4, 57; II, 5, 34. 31) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 55; II, 2, 55; II, 3, 57; II, 4, 58; II, 5, 34. 32) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 56-61; II, 2, 56-61; II, 3, 58-75; II, 4, 59-65; II, 5, 35-36. 33) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum, (in De Rijk, 1982b), II, 1, 62-70; II, 2, 62-72; II, 3, 64-75; II, 4, 66-77; II, 5, 37-41. 34) Here Richard Billingham discusses sophisms, which bring into discussion fundamentals of medieval semantics. More on Billingham’s semantics in general in De Rijk (1982a), 167-184.

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‘demonstrare’. Here ‘probare’ has a general sense of ‘putting to the test’. To analyse may also be a species under it. Generally speaking, fourteenth century philosophy directed their attention to the procedures for proving sentences of all types.35 As I said above, truth and knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and analysis on the other, should be distinguished.36 Billingham does not explain the relation between truth, proof and knowledge.37 In the introduction to his commentary, in the fifth doubt, Henry of Coesfeld speaks about the truth value of the propositions. Henry asks: what is the truth of a proposition, and how is it to be distinguished from a true proposition? This leads him to a rejection of a theory of complexe significabilia, at least of a too realistic version of it. He also rejects the thesis that the truth of a proposition is an inherent quality of the proposition. His own opinion is that the truth of a proposition is a rational entity about the proposition. Truth and falsity are in the soul, not in things.38 Henry seems to be in line with Ockham by identifying the truth with the proposition, be it mental, written or spoken and by considering less acceptable the position that a spoken or written proposition is true in virtue of a mental proposition, a view which comes closer to Buridan.39 35)

De Rijk (1982b), *4*. Questions 4 and 5 of the second tract of the Prague sophistria are comments on §§ 26-29 of Billingham’s Mirror (Bos, 2005, 357, l. 9-360, l. 3). The anonymous master elucidates these notions. Here the question is whether for the truth of an indefinite proposition the truth of its demonstratives is required (question 4). Other than in question 2 (Bos, p. 350, l. 23-355, l. 28), the question here is about truth, not about proof. A true proposition is one that can sometimes be proved. To prove a proposition, as has been said, is to show its truth with the help of other propositions. One can also prove the falsity of propositions, if ‘proof’ is taken in a more general sense. 37) Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [E: f. 3va; not found in MS K]: Nota quid sit ‘probatio’, et quid sit ‘probare’. Unde in proposito probatio est in propositione veritatis ostensio, et probare est veritatem alicuius propositionis ostendere. Similiter improbatio est falsitatis alicuius propositionis ostensio, et improbare est falsitatem alicuius propositionis ostendere, et hoc aliquando vere, et aliquando apparenter. 38) Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [E: f. 4va, K: f. 46v; I leave the variant readings aside]: Veritas propositionis est ens rationis circa compositionem vel divisionem dictionum consistens, denominans ab extrinseco id quod per compositionem vel divisionem significatur. (. . .) [E: f. 5ra, K: 46v]: Probatur sic, quia verum et falsum sunt in anima, et non in rebus, sicut bonum et malum sunt in rebus, et non in anima. 39) Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [E: f. 4va, K: f. 46v]: Sed quia opinio hec communiter reputatur falsa et erronea, ideo contra eam primo pono talem propositionem: non sunt ponenda complexe significabilia quemadmodum ipsi posuerunt. Et dico notanter ‘quemadmodum isti posuerunt’ vocando quamlibet talem rem complexe significabile que complexe potest significari. Tunc quelibet res mundi quantumcumque simplex est, complexe significabile est, quia quelibet talis potest per orationem complexe significari. Unde simplicissima res que est Deus, potest 36)

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In his sixth doubt Henry asks whether there is a single way by which each proposition can be proved to be true or false. He concludes that a proposition is true when it is in fact as it once was true to be signified to be true. He emphasises ‘to be signified’ in order to avoid any realism; he wishes to emphasise the part played by the intellect.40 I would like to draw attention to Mrs Weber’s result when investigating Billingham’s notion of inference. Here too is the emphasis on the intellect. A consequence is valid when the consequent is understood in the antecedent.41 The analysis of a proposition leads to considering the relation between the proposition and the senses and intellect. Richard is not clear on this aspect. In the commentaries we find the conclusion that the senses especially play a part in accepting immediate propositions as true, and the intellect in accepting a priori truths (for instance the principle of contradiction).42 Kinds of Terms Billingham distinguishes between resolvable, componible, exponible and functionalisable (or ‘officiable’) terms. The definitions of the technical terms used by Billingham are important for understanding his semantics.43 The commentators discuss these kinds, not so much the definitions themselves, but the examples contained under them. Mediate and Immediate Terms In his Mirror, Billingham starts by presenting a principal division, viz. between mediate and immediate terms.

complexe significari per hanc orationem complexam ‘Deus est bonus’, ‘Deus est prima causa’, nam Deum esse primam causam nihil est in re nisi Deus, et sic de aliis. 40) Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [E: f. 6va, not found in MS K]: Quarum prima est ista quod cuiuslibet propositionis cathegorice affirmative de presenti in qua non ponitur ampliativus, ad veritatem requiritur quod sic sit in re qualitercumque per eam precise et secundum eius totalem significationem significatur. Probatur inductive, quia ad hoc quod hec sit vera ‘Sortes currit’, requiritur quod sit in re sicut per eius totalem significationem significatur, scilicet quod ‘Sortes currit’ sit aliqua res. 41) Weber (2003), xxv. 42) The anonymous Munich commentary says [f. 108rb]: Sciendum: ista propositio est nota per sensum quia sic se habet quod ipsa negata non contingit eam probari per aliquod notius, et quando habetur notitia terminorum illius propositioni<s> immediate, tunc statim intellectus eius assentit per eius naturalem inclinationem. 43) For further discussion the reader is referred to Maierù (1982). See also Andrews (1993).

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Billingham defines ‘terminus’ in general as that in which a proposition is resolved, together with the verb ‘to be’ or ‘not to be’. Here he follows Aristotle. On the basis of Boethius he adds that terms are the nouns and verbs out of which a proposition is put together. Terms are either immediate or mediate. According to Billingham, immediate terms are: demonstrative pronouns, substantive verbs and ampliative verbs.44 They cannot be resolved. Mediate terms are resolvable, componible, exponible or functionalisable. Immediate terms are therefore neither resolvable, nor exponible, nor functionalisable. There is a discussion in the commentaries about the difference between immediate nouns and immediate verbs:45 verbs are immediate because they have no superior(s), but only inferior(s). An interesting example is the verb ‘to be’. He implies, I believe, that, if ‘being’ could be deduced on the basis of a middle term, it would be a genus term and categorematic, not transcendent, as ‘being’ is traditionally conceived. Nouns, however, are immediate if they have no terms under them. Such a noun is for instance ‘this’. They are connected with individuals, which are irreducible. Billingham says that the verbs ‘is’ and ‘can’ are both immediate. In a joint article, Ashworth and Spade wonder how an unambiguous notion of immediacy can cover this claim. The medieval commentators also found a difficulty here. Both the anonymous Munich commentator and the anonymous master of the Prague sophistria criticise Richard.46 The anonymous of Munich argues that ‘can’ ampliates its subject term and is therefore resolvable and mediate. He adds that ‘can’ can at best be called ‘immediate’ in comparison with other ampliative verbs. 44)

A. Maierù (1982a), 405. Cf. Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [E: f. 8rb, K: f. 48r]: Et subdit consequenter auctor in particula tertia dicens quod in hoc conveniunt omnes termini immediati quia non habent medium per quod propositiones in quibus ponuntur, possunt ratione ipsorum terminus probari, quia non habent aliquod [E: f.8va] medium inferius per quod possunt probari, ut sunt pronomina et sic alii, quia non habent aliquod superius sicut hoc verbum ‘est’ et consimilia. Et dicit auctor noster etiam quod hoc verbum ‘potest’ est terminus immediatus qui non habet superius per quod propositio in qua ponitur, probari. 46) The Prague Sophistria [f. 57va]: Nota: aliqui dicunt quod ly ‘est’ non est resolubile, nec potest, ex eo quod potentia presupponit actum. Sed potius videtur esse oppositum, scilicet quod actus presupponit potentiam, quia quicquid est in actu, hoc est in potentia, et non econverso, quia Antichristus est in potentia et non in actu. Et ergo potest assignari alia ratio, quia ly ‘potest’ est ampliativum, et ly ‘est’ non, ergo non est superius. Et hoc videtur velle Auctor quando dicit quod ly ‘est’ est terminus immediatus, ideo quia non habet verbum superius non ampliativum (Sophistria ed. Bos, p. 317, l. 30-318, l. 3). 45)

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Resolvable and Componible Terms; Resolvable and Componible Proof To understand the Speculum it is important to know the definitions of the terms ‘resolubilis’ and ‘componibilis’, not in the least because Billingham himelf does not give definitions in a proper sense. Resolvable Terms and Resolvable Proof First on resolvable terms and propositions. Billingham says47 that a resolvable term is a common term (noun or participle), that has an inferior term under it. ‘Homo’ is such a resolvable term. It has ‘hoc’ as a term under it.48 Therefore a proposition like ‘homo currit’ can be resolved into ‘hoc currit’, and ‘hoc est homo’. That a term is resolvable is immediately manifest in the fact that a proposition in which such a term occurs can be resolved. The notions ‘resolvable term’ and ‘resolvable proposition’ are linked. The notion ‘resolutio’ resembles ‘inductio’, because the conclusion is based on a premise about an individual. The commentators are well aware of that. One could argue, as is done in the commentaries, that, clearly, ‘every man runs, an animal is a man, therefore an animal runs’ cannot be a resolvable proof, because it is on the basis of an inferior term. This cannot be a proof, however, for the major premise is less known than the conclusion, which is contrary to the nature of proof as such. The point is that the argument proceeds from what is better known, not that it is a proof. The commentaries make clear that induction is not a resolvable proof. For instance, in the sophistria, the master replies that in a resolvable proof, there is only a single instant as basis: in induction, however, more, or even all singulars are required. So he distinguishes between these two kinds of argument, and emphasises that the former is not a real proof.49 The resolution of a proposition is the basis of the expository syllogism.50

47)

Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (De Rijk, 1982b) II, 2, 7; II, 3, 9; II, 4, 7; II, 5, 6. MS K of Billingham’s Speculum has ‘verb’, participle, adverb. Or is ‘proper noun’ intended? Paul of Venice has adverbs instead of pronouns, for instance ‘somewhere’ (‘alicubi’ ); see Paul of Venice (1979), 224, l. 19. 49) The Prague-sophistria [f. 59vb]: Respondetur quod in <argumento> resolutorio sumitur solum unum inferius ad terminum ratione cuius fit probatio resolutoria; sed in inductione sumuntur plura inferiora, scilicet plura, vel omnia, singularia (Sophistria, ed. Bos, p. 330, ll. 14-16). 50) The Munich commentary [f. 108vb]: Hic magister declarat quoddam prius dictum, scilicet quod ista regula predicta est fundamentum syllogismi expositorii, quia negato syllogismo expositorio syllogismus habet probari per istam regulam. Et syllogismus expositorius habet probari per 48)

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Componible Terms and Componible Proof Next on componible terms and componible proof. This is a difficult subject, because Richard only mentions the componible term in the recensio altera,51 and does not define it. He gives an example: ‘homo currit’ is composed by the premisses ‘omne animal currit’, et ‘omnis homo est animal’. Componible proof is also a problem. Richard seems to distinguish between a nominal componible proof and a verbal componible proof. So do the commentators, but from the texts one gets the impression that not everybody understood Richard’s intention. A componible nominal proof is a proof of a proposition on the basis of a higher term, for instance ‘every animal runs, man is an animal, therefore man runs’. It resembles deduction, which can be put in a syllogistic form, whereas resolvable proof, on the contrary, is on the basis of an inferior term, e.g. a singular term, which by itself cannot be placed in a syllogistic form. In the sophistria from Prague, an opponent adds: ‘on the basis of a term which naturally is better known’, but the anonymous author replies that to prove componibly is not identical to a deductive proof in the strict sense. It is about a contingent statement.52

“Biligare”: Something New? Is Billingham’s Mirror just a continuation of ancient logic? Or is it something new? As can be expected, the medievals themselves say that in the book something was explained which could also be found before, i.e. in Aristotle. They refer, in this case, to the last chapters of Aristotle’s Topics.53 In the Munich commentary, a fictional opponent asks who is the author of the Speculum. The commentator answers ‘Billingham’, and adds that Billingham is said to have combined the old and new logic, which is expressed in the

conditiones syllogismi. Unde syllogismus expositorius est syllogismus cuius medium est terminus singularis singulariter et univoce tentus, et est duplex: affirmativus cuius conclusio est affirmativa, et negativus cuius conclusio est negativa. 51) Richard Billingham, Speculum puerorum (De Rijk, 1982b) I, 2, 12; II, 3, 9; II, 4, 7; II, 5, 6. 52) The Prague sophistria [f. 59vb]: Nota: probare componibiliter est in probatione propositionis ratione alicuius termini assumere terminum superiorem eidem. Et aliqui addunt ‘nobis naturaliter notiorem’, sed de hoc dicitur sicud circa precedentem descriptionem (Bos, 2005, 331, ll. 9-11). 53) The Munich commentary [f. 107va]: Ad primum respondetur: hoc complexum ‘propositio probabilis respectu termini immediati in ea positi’, et propria passio eius est ‘verum vel falsum probabile’. Et licet in libro Topicorum etiam habetur, tamen non ratione primi termini mediati.

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word ‘biligare’.54 Perhaps he means that Billingham investigates both terms (the subject of the old logic), and proofs (the subject of the new logic). This is remarkable, for usually a tract could be placed in either of the two parts of ancient logic. It is even more remarkable that Henry of Coesfeld says that Billingham’s work is something new, although he is well aware that this is usually thought otherwise, as has been said.55 The theory of the probationes propositionum focuses on the analysis of an analysable term used in a proposition. The Munich commentator adds that the final cause of the book, i.e. that at which it aims, is the truth or falsity of propositions.56 The present volume discusses the roots of medieval logic. Which were the roots of the tradition of the analysis of propositions, such as Billingham’s Speculum presents? To Billingham’s commentator Henry of Coesfeld, the roots lay in Aristotle. Aristotle did not explicitly discuss the theory of the probationes propositionum, but that was not necessary, he adds, for the meaning of officiable, resolvable and exponible terms was clear enough.57 Be that as it may, the roots of this theory can also be found in the search of certainty and evidence, which characterized fourteenth-century philosophy. In general one might say that this approach to logic was influenced by the science arising in fourteenth-century England, which is empirically and mathematically formulated, such as one may find in William of Heytesbury. The theory of the analysis of a proposition in combination with the theory of the properties of terms made logic richer.

54)

The Munich commentary [f. 107va]: Ad secundum respondetur quod fuit reverendus magister Richardus Biligam Anglicus, de studio Uxoniensi. Et dicitur quasi ‘biligans’ duo, scilicet novam et veterem loycam. 55) Cf. above, p. 363. 56) The Munich commentary [f. 107va]: Ad quintum respondetur quod communiter loquendo de causis scientie huius libri, tunc sunt quattuor, scilicet causa materialis, subiectum et intentio sunt unum et idem, de quibus habitum est; sed causa finalis seu utilitas est cognitio veritatis vel falsitatis propositionum. 57) Henry of Coesfeld, Commentary [E: f. 2va; K: 45r]: Propter hoc non explicite tradidit istum modum, quia credidit illum satis planum esse ex significatione terminorum resolubilium, officiabilium vel exponibilium.


www.brill.nl/viv

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